100 Themes Writing Challenge

I promised you more about the writing challenge I'm about, with some trepidation, to undertake. Today I'll explain how the idea unfolded, tomorrow I'll describe how I expect it to work and the day after I'll list the themes. That'll take us to Friday, meaning I can start the challenge itself on Saturday - giving me a couple of weekend days to get me started before I have to try it on a working day.

It being the most glorious day of the year so far here in Manchester yesterday, Nat & I went for a lunchtime walk in the park during which she told me a bit more about how she's getting on with her art challenge. Paint 100 pictures in 100 days using a set of prompts garnered from t'Interweb for inspiration, and spending only 30 minutes on each piece of art. She might even link to the work in the comments, if you're good.

The more we talked about how important it is to "keep your hand in" with artistic endeavour, flex the creative muscles, and not worry too much about the quality of the output (at least initially) but instead concentrate on getting it done and trying new things, the more the parallels with writing became obvious. We're always being told to "write every day" and "write the first draft from the heart" and so on, and here I was with a couple of hours every day in front of a computer that belong totally to me. An ideal time to write.

As Nat predicted it didn't take much searching to come up with a list of themes. I don't know whether it's a good list. I'm not even sure I'd be able to recognise a "good" list. But it is A list, or perhaps more importantly it is THE list, because the point of the exercise is to try new things, not spend hours searching for a list I feel comfortable with. A degree of discomfort is probably a Good Thing. I don't know, either, if I'll be able to come up with anything remotely interesting for each theme. We'll see. Or rather you will. I couldn't possibly comment.