New dates–week of May 15, 2023.

Nearly ten years ago, I offered my first writing challenge.

But, if you’re new to Writing Your Life, you might not know what a writing challenge is. Let me tell you about it.

We designed the writing challenges to get you writing, period. The goal is to move memories from your mind to the page, and it doesn’t matter what you write or how you write it. We just want you to write.

Many Writing Your Life challenges later, people continue to gather from around the world to write in community. Every challenge focuses on a particular topic and instructs on some aspect of writing. You receive a short video daily with a lesson and a prompt designed to trigger memories.

Participants are then asked to write in response to the prompt and, if they care to, share their stories on the challenge web page. That way, we all can read your work and cheer you on.

We’ve written about many topics over the years—travels, firsts in your life, turning points, unforgettable people, micro-memoir, and more. Our challenges have lasted one to fourteen days, and hundreds of thousands of words have been written, and I know of at least one book that grew out of one of our challenges.

So why am I talking so much about writing challenges?

You guessed it. We have a brand-new challenge starting the week of May 15, 2023, (new dates) and it will be a good one.

Our upcoming challenge lasts three days—Tuesday-Thursday, May 16-18, 2023 (new dates)—and the subject is Writing Emotion. When people write about emotional times, most tend to state their feelings—I felt sad. I felt mad. I felt happy.—but there’s a much better way to communicate emotions—by showing rather than telling.

Each day, I’ll provide you with tools that help show your emotions in action and then offer an assignment for practice.

Does this sound like fun? It is. Registration opens this week, so keep an eye out for the email announcement.

Also, did I mention it’s free? Yeah, it won’t cost you anything but a bit of time.

Sharpen your pencils, grab your favorite ink pen, charge your laptops, and get ready to write in the Free Three-Day Writing Challenge.

Tell us about your experience with writing challenges. Have you participated in challenges before? Do you like challenges? What do you like about them? What have you been able to accomplish in writing challenges? Give us your challenge scoop.

Remember, the only way to do this wrong is to not do it at all.

Until next time, happy writing.

Please note: All grammatical and typographical errors have been put in this article for
your enjoyment in finding them.