Today I am pleased to share another guest post from Dori Stone, a writer and enthusiastic participant of this month’s 31-minute challenge. I have seen it for myself and should have warned you: writing can be a highly contagious activity! 🙂

When I started the 31-day 31-minute challenge, excitement and determination filled me.  I hoped to use it as a stepping stone to focus on my writing.  Who would have thought it would actually change my life?

I’m not a famous writer, just a person who enjoys writing.  So when Katia encouraged the challenge participants to write a guest post for her blog, I said, “Not me!”  But then, I took a breath and said. “Why not me?  What do I have to lose?” Quickly before I could chicken out, I wrote Katia and almost immediately, she accepted my offer to “submit something.”

What had I gotten myself into?

I didn’t stop to think about it, I just sat down and wrote from my heart and hit the send button. Again, almost instantly, Katia responded, “I’ll use your post in early January.”

A few days later, I couldn’t believe my eyes when my words and picture appeared online.

Something equally spectacular happened as a result of the challenge.  A couple of days before it started, Katia posted something like this: “We have 29 participants, wouldn’t it be fun if we could enlist two more people? Then, we’d have 31 writers, writing 31 minutes a day, for 31 days.”

Hmmm. I thought. My husband used to write…could I convince him to commit?

When I twisted his arm, he said, “What would I write?”

“Anything, anything at all,” I said.  Then I promised, “No pressure, just 31 minutes.” To seal the deal I served him prime rib on New Year’s Eve and promised to forget about signing him up at the gym.  And, poof, just like magic, he agreed to “try it.”

Now I can’t get him to stop! He’s up before dawn, writing. He forgets to eat, sleep and take out the trash.  He’ll sit for hours at a time with his laptop, lost in his own world spinning thoughts into story.

Yes, life is different now. Together we write, 31 minutes each and every day; most days much more than that.  To some, 31 minutes seems hardly worth doing but in our house it is life altering.

Thank you, Katia.  And good luck fellow challengers.

I am so thrilled that your husband caught the writing bug, Dori! Look for his post next week, challenge participants!

So… we’re in the home stretch now, aren’t we? I know the month flew by for me, partly because of the Vermont College of Fine Arts residency, I’m sure. How about you? Just six days left! How has the writing been going? What have you been learning about yourselves, your process, your work?

Here are a few blog posts from others who have been participating:

http://ahechoes.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/sometimes-we-need-that-little-push/

http://www.wendygreenley.com/2013/01/writing-priorities.html