I spent the last several days in northwest Wisconsin at a Motherhood and Words writing retreat led by the fabulous Kate Hopper. This is the third time I’ve attended one of Kate’s retreats and this retreat, like the others, was full of writing exercises, good food, some tears and lots of laughter. At the other retreats I came away with some solid drafts of essays. This year, however, I wrote a ton but did not get anything honed into the solid draft stage. I did, however, come away from the retreat with a ton of motivation to keep on working on the stories I started.

Wanting to keep my writing momentum going, I thought about creating a goal for the weeks ahead to keep myself writing. I considered writing a set number of minutes per day or per week. I thought about writing a set number of pages. I thought about setting a goal to finish an essay in a certain amount of time. None of those potential goals felt quite right. Then I remembered something I did a few years back that worked well for me to keep me writing – 30 Days of Writing!

Inspired by all of the 30 Days of Biking challenges I’ve done, I created 30 Days of Writing for myself back in February of 2012 with a goal of simply writing a bit each day. If I recall correctly, I set a goal of writing one page longhand in my journal. I could write more, of course, but that one page minimum was an attainable goal and a good starting point. In the course of a month, I wrote a ton and felt great about all I accomplished.

So I’m launching a 30 Days of Writing challenge for myself starting on March 1st – that’s tomorrow already! I have a super busy schedule right now but will figure out ways to find time to write and make it happen!

Here’s the best part, I mentioned my 30 Days of Writing goal to the women who attended the writing retreat with me and a few of them are going to join me!

If you want, you can do a 30 Days of Writing challenge of your own (let me know if you do!) Make up your own rules  – write a certain number of words or fill a page or whatever sounds good to you.  Be kind if you miss a day for some reason and keep on writing!