The other day, my sister asked me if I wanted to do National Novel Writing Month with her. This means writing xxxx number of words a day.
She’s doing a minor in a creative writing. How do I compete with that?
I’m exhausted already.
But what if I didn’t restrict myself to a creative exercise? What if instead, I made this into a multi-chapter technical writing exercise?
I’ve got a couple ideas for using the idea of NaNoWriMo to develop written communication skills for real-world applications. Just try to flesh out your own personal, professional writing style by practicing, practicing, practicing. No word count minimum required. Such fun! So adult!
For the Procrastinator: respond to one email a day. Or maybe write one email a day (perhaps that “stupid” question you were too scared to ask your prof?). If there’s no email to be drafted or responded to, unsubscribe from one of those annoying marketing e-blasts that you receive because you wanted to win a free watch that one time. Okay, I never said any of my ideas were good ideas.
For the Interview-Challenged (ayyyyy): answer one interview question a day. Google or Bing the most common questions, and brainstorm your best answer. Keep your work in a folder to pull up and review the next time you get a call back from that internship you really want. I’m excited to try this one, especially since I’m collecting interview-worthy experiences through my co-op right now.
For the over-sharer at heart: blog every day. Pffffft, ok. Hasn’t worked well for me, but maybe for you?
For the Extremely Ambitious: a cover letter a day. No, I’m not suggesting you do 30 job applications. I just think that by trying to write the same things over and over again, you’ll find the best way of explaining what you really meant. Plus, you can write draft cover letter templates for different job types—a sports marketing company is gonna look for very different things than a physiotherapy clinic.
Got any better ideas? Holla at ya girl (dats me!).
Happy writing!
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