Yet Another Thirty-One

I admit it: I haven't been posting much on Summer Vacation lately. There's a reason for it though, and it's not for a lack of ideas.

Two years ago I was on a year-long New Year's resolution quest to set and meet a different goal every month. The idea had been to look for some small way to improve life each month, instead of trying to take on one goal that would last all year. I figured if the goals were reasonably attainable and I only had to keep each of them going for one month, I'd probably have more success. Overall it worked out okay.

My goal for May 2013 had been to write a new post here every day, which turned out to be one of the goals I met. It was a lot of work -- something close to the 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo in November -- but I enjoyed it enough to do it again the following year. My 2014 May posting marathon was also a success, in that I managed to post every day. I'm not going to claim each post was a landmark of entertainment or insight or revelation, but I felt pretty good about what I had done when it was over.

Since it almost feels like a tradition for me now, I've decided to give it a go one more time -- one blog post for each day of the month, starting Friday, May 1st. Luckily I've planned ahead this time and have stashed away a list of possible topics; I haven't started writing any of them yet (it's my own rule that all of the physical writing needs to take place during May), but one thing I've come to realize about my process is that I benefit from taking time beforehand to think things over, so once the calendar changes out of April I should be ready to hit the ground running.

I'm sure some of the ideas on my list right now won't make the final cut, and I'm equally sure other things will happen during May to inspire new topics. Even though I'm usually an obsessive planner when it comes to writing, having the entire month mapped out ahead of me would take away from the fun; there's something about the tiny bit of panic of having to think up and write a brand new post each day that gives the whole project a more dynamic quality on the writing end.

Additionally, since I believe I've done this same thing during each of the two previous blog runs, I'm putting out a call to anybody who might have ideas about topics for me to take on. I like the challenge of starting with an idea that isn't mine and having to build around it. If you have an idea, share it as a comment on the Facebook link I'll post, or on the comment section right here, or even on Twitter if that's where you find this. I've also had people write guest posts during both previous years and I'm planning to try and do that again this year -- I've got someone in mind I'll be hitting up soon (the initials A.E. are all I will give up as a hint), but if anyone else is interested in writing a guest post for whatever reason, we can certainly talk. Let me know. It makes one less day I have to worry about.

Eleven days and counting....