I signed up for Holidailies again this year. I’ve done this for many years, though I missed a couple of years during my various blogging hiatuses (is that the plural?) For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it’s basically just a challenge to post to your blog every day during the month of December. The years that I’ve done it I’ve pretty much managed to make my goal.

But I think I’m going to step it up this year. Yes, it’s a challenge to post frequently, but I want to make this a writing challenge this year. Yes, I can find some sort of minutiae about my life to post every day, but can I write something good every day? Can I write an essay every day? Or a scene? A good one?

You see, I’ve discovered that the more I write, the more I write. And, the better I try to write, the better I actually write.

This is (obviously) a different sort of writing challenge than NaNoWriMo, since in NaNo it’s essentially pressure to get the words out, and it encourages people to write like crap. And don’t get me wrong, I’m all about writing crap first drafts. That was my writing process for my two Demon novels and it worked pretty darn well for me.

But I haven’t seen any equivalent writing challenges that really focus on quality. (Yes, I know that there’s a National Novel Editing Month sometime in the spring that’s supposed to follow up on NaNo, but that’s not really what I’m shooting for here.)

So, I’ll put this challenge out for the writers who read this, especially those of you finishing up NaNoWriMo. You don’t have to join Holidailies, but if you’re up for it, post “Thirty-One Thoughtfuls” in December.

(Okay, I don’t like “Thirty-One Thoughtfuls” for the name of this challenge. I am completely open to suggestions.)