Tuesday, November 10, 2009

What ever happened to the 60 journal days?

For background on the 60 Days of Journal Article Writing, please click here.

If you're wondering if I gave up on the 60 Days project, I most certainly did not. It's time to start over again with the book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, after what I considered a necessary breather. Yes, the project resulted in an article in six weeks rather than twelve, but the pace left me tired, and other things got pushed aside to finish and submit that article. I'm proud of it and happy with the result (nay, thrilled), but the last couple of weeks have been spent regrouping. Now I'm ready to start over again. Instead of blogging daily, however, I'll change the structure to a weekly blog for twelve weeks to see how long it takes to produce a second article.

One of the most interesting things about the exercise was how easily the scary prospect of article writing was vanquished with the help of a good book. I had trembled at it for years, and dodged it by focusing on books. Whether or not that article is accepted is almost irrelevant (although it would be nice to hear something positive). What matters more is that I enjoyed the scholarship for its own sake and it resulted in a well-researched, personally satisfying piece. Some well-published authors admit that they only do it for the money, or the recognition, but I trust that writing for the satisfaction is also deeply important. That article made me happy, and such joy is now something that I hope to share with even more Booklab authors.

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