Precisely one year ago today, Ryan and I thought it would be fun to participate in Inkygirl’s  “250 words a day” . I blogged about it here.   250 words seemed do-able, low stakes and possible. I was filled with hope, enthusiasm…even pluck.

And then life got in the way.

Although I did do my share of writing last year (here on this blog  and over  here  and even over here and here…), well, it wasn’t a consistent 250 words every day.  As I deleted the “250 words” badge from the sidebar of this blog I wondered whether anyone else might have had the same difficulties.  Traa-laa, there was.

Enter “ The Distracted Writers Club 50 Words Per Day Challenge” from the blog A Splintered Mind.  This part of the post rang particularly true for me:

Maybe you can relate. You’re a writer with good intentions and high enthusiasm who writes around the edges of your busy life. You’ve started projects like NaNoWriMo and found that although you were emotionally committed to the daily effort, your time schedule was not. Soon you found work, family, responsibilities, life, etc. interfering with your goals.

and this too

Writing 1667 words per day for NaNoWriMo is a fantastic goal, but it’s one thing to make a goal and another to achieve it. If your life isn’t structured to make room for the goal, you’ll likely never achieve it. I found failing NaNoWriMo despite my enthusiasm very disheartening and stressful. 50,000 words in one month was too big a mouthful to swallow for me.

Hence, the 50 Words a Day Challenge.

The “rules” for the challenge can be found in the post (and yes there is even a 25 words a day challenge too).

So here are my first 50 words (and then some)  for 2012.

I am now off to figure out how to get the badge (above) over to the sidebar over there—>