Blogocentric Formulations

In Conclusion

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  | May 30

Prompt ▼

Congratulations on making it to the last day of the competition! What was your favorite prompt from the last month? What was the most rewarding aspect of participating in the competition? What did you learn?

I think my favorite prompt would have to be yesterday's prompt about the dream house ("Dream House" ). I really like blog prompts that make you think and require you to give more than just a perfunctory answer, so prompts like, "write about your dream home" are really appealing to me because they can be answered in a single paragraph or, if the blogger is feeling inspired, a much more thorough response. I dislike prompts that can be answered with just a couple of sentences and after that it's just a bunch of waxing poetic.

The more interesting question to me, though, isn't which prompts were our favorites, but which of our responses were our favorite. There were several blog entries this month where I really didn't like the prompt, or didn't initially find it very inspiring, but then ended up being pleasantly surprised by how they turned out. "30DBC Road Trip"  was one of those, as was "Cooking Submissive" . That's probably the part that was the most rewarding about this whole experience too. As it so often is with writing, sometimes you get surprised by the things you come up with, for better or for worse.

I'm not sure I really learned anything from this activity, except in the general, cliched, "I got to know myself better through self exploration blah blah blah" that often comes from blogging activities where the prompts challenge you to think about your own personal tastes, preferences, and predilections. Well, that and I suppose I learned things like who's dream house would be fun to visit, who would be a convenient stop on a road trip around North America, and who to steer clear of.

Overall, I'm glad I completed the 30DBC this month. While there were definitely times that I really disliked having to slog through an entry I wasn't particularly keen on writing, I'm enjoying the feeling of accomplishment now that it's done, and I'm pretty proud of a handful of the entries that were inspired by the activity. I'm not sure I have the time or the interest in doing every 30DBC, but I can definitely see doing a month here and there when I'm feeling the need for a little inspiration, encouragement, or just need to feel productive getting some words committed to the page (or screen, as it were).