AcWriMo, the academic take on #NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), has been around for a number of years . I’ve even participated a couple of times in the past and if you’re curious about what I’ve done in previous years see my #AcWriMo reflections from 2012 and 2015.
One of the things I love about #AcWriMo is that it encourages participants to pick their own writing goals. It could be to finish a paper, write X number of words a day, work on a book project, or any thing else associated with academic writing.
The #AcWriMo initiative was originally started in 2011 by Charlotte Frost as a month dedicated to hitting those lofting academic writing goals, encouraging academics to talk about their writing in public, and to build a virtual academic writing community. This year Charlotte has stepped back from formal #AcWriMo organizing but many academics are still engaging with the hashtag and goals of the challenge. Additionally a lot of resources that were created for #AcWriMo are still available for download and use for those who are just getting started.
My 2017 #AcWriMo goals include:
- Writing something every day. It doesn’t have to be long but it does have to be related to my academic work and tweets don’t count. I’m setting myself this goal as part of my ongoing efforts to build better writing habits.
- Get back on track with regular scheduling blog posts.
- Revamp my ongoing writing topics list to weed out ideas that no longer interest me.
- Continue to plug away at an ongoing article draft. My goal for this task is to have a draft ready for more detailed editing by the end of December.
My goals this year aren’t about quantity. They are about fostering good writing habits, prioritizing my work, and hopefully getting a few smaller things off my plate. I would love to know who else is participating this year and what everyone’s goals are.
Photo credit: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.