\r\nThis was written January 1st, 2026<\/i>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\nWriting Challenge 2025 – Retrospective<\/h2>\r\n
\r\nWell, this one challenge is now over, and I’ve…mostly accomplished it. I did have\r\nto twist some of the initial parameters to accomplish it, in particular I had two kinds\r\nof lapses:\r\n
\r\nStill, you can’t always choose how inspiration will strike, and might as well strike while\r\nthe iron is hot. Moreover, it was about keeping the habit alive, so I think I should feel\r\nhappy about having kept the habit alive.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nHowever, I do have a few thoughts to share about how it went. First of all, just as I’ve\r\ndiscovered during my daily drawing challenge in October (nope, nothing about it on the\r\nblog, it was a purely personal thing…though I might follow up on this at some point),\r\nit seems like the optimum part of such a challenge is the second week. To me, that’s when\r\nI feel some of the best results came out. I think it might be a mix of having had time\r\nto improve a bit, along with still having a high motivation. I reckon later on, in weeks\r\nthree and four, there is a mixture of expectation, along with exhaustion, that kicks in.\r\nWorries about results not being as good as before, along with weariness, leading to\r\nphoning it in more often.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nNext, one thing I’ve found rather surprising is how, usually, inspiration still came in.\r\nIt also rarely came in the form I expected. For over a whole month of writing, that’s\r\nrather surprising. Yet, sitting long enough at my desk, I eventually would have an idea\r\nthat would pop up in my head. Still, the longer the month went, the less ideas I had\r\nwhich I’d already thought about previously. This does mean it was easiest for some of the\r\nearly stories to be more fleshed out, having cooked up longer in my brain.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nNow, a few of the annoyances with it. First, some of my ideas felt a bit too ambitious,\r\nand so I discarded them for this challenge. If I gave myself a few days per story, that\r\nwould likely not be as much of an issue. Similarly, as stated in the Challenge Introduction,\r\nI decided to discard the option to review my text. However, this felt a bit…shameful\r\nin some cases. And I at time hesitated using some concepts because of that…it felt like\r\na waste. In the future, I’d like to investigate another similar challenge…though I might\r\nhave different rules, for longer and better stories, although this is still to be determined.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAs for my schedule…I didn’t have any schedule. As long as I did this before going to sleep,\r\nit counted. That…caused a lot of pain, sometimes making me go to sleep rather late (in\r\nthe neighborhood of 4am). True, this was also due to combining it with other daily habits\r\n(reading, drawing and exercise), but I’m not sure how sustainable it would be long-term.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nStill, I managed to complete this challenge, and I will file this under S for Success!\r\nNow, to move on to the next project! (There might be an upcoming announcement related\r\nto this, I just need to evaluate viability first, so stay tuned!)\r\n<\/p>
\r\nIf you’ve followed my progress, and know me personally, I would like to ask you four\r\nquestions about my writing. I’d be curious to know what people think:\r\n
\r\nIndeed, while this challenge is over, it doesn’t mean I’m done with writing, and I consider\r\nthis kind of feedback valuable.\r\n<\/p>
\r\nFinally, If you were here and saw my challenge through the end, whether you liked the stories or\r\nwere just curious, I’m very thankful. I would like to thank everyone who supported me,\r\nwhether through kind words, helping me stay on track with this challenge. And a\r\nvery special thanks to the donations I’ve received to my BuyMeACoffee!\r\n<\/p>
\r\nAnd if you’ve been wanting to support me, I would redirect you to my support page<\/a>.\r\n<\/p> \r\nIf you liked any of my stories or just the idea of the challenge\r\ninteresting, don’t hesitate to share it or any of the specific stories with others!\r\n<\/p> \r\nTake care everyone, and thank you all!\r\n<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This was written January 1st, 2026 Writing Challenge 2025 – Retrospective Well, this one challenge is now over, and I’ve…mostly accomplished it. I did have to twist some of the initial parameters to accomplish it, in particular I had two kinds of lapses: I had one story that was not self-contained, ending on a cliffhanger … Continue reading Writing Challenge 2025 \u2013 Retrospective<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2680,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions\/2680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shawnmeanders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}