Reflections on the 100 Days of Poetry Project #1: Challenge Design
Reflections on the
100 Days of Poetry Project #1:
Challenge Design
Introduction
Greetings and salutations, Steemiverse! After taking a bit of time to decompress after our poetry challenge, I wanted to begin the process of reflecting on the experience through writing. I invite anyone who participated (whether you made it all the way through, dropped partway, or even just observed the challenge) to join me and post reflections in the comments of this post. It can be a link to a blog post or simply written as a reply. I feel it will be invaluable for us to share our insights with each other as we move forward.
I will be looking at the many difficult and enriching aspects of this project, as well reflecting on so-called 'successes and failures.' I will endeavor to have a balance of the intuitive and the rational present. After all, poetry is an unique artform where emotion and logic serve to carve unique images into the mind of reader and poet alike.
The aspect of the challenge I will reflect on in this post is its design—meaning its rules, guidelines, execution, organization, etc.
Challenge Design
In my opinion, the design of this challenge was deeply flawed. I am indebted to @quillfire, @geekorner and @dobartim for giving much-needed blunt criticism to its layout before the challenge even began. Later, many of those in the poetry class such as @acousticsteveo, @tygertyger, @hazem91, @whack.science, @carmalain7, @yahialababidi, @prydefoltz, @sansoncarrasco, @mamadini, @liverussian, and others chimed in on its construction.
I believe the most egregious flaws with the design of the challenge were as follows:
- I underestimated the degree of participant interest (originally 135 applicants.)
- I failed to build a team to aid in the administration of the project before launch.
- Because of these failures, I was unable to stay current on determining and announcing winners, properly responding to DMs and comments, recording and posting poetry classes, and giving detailed feedback to participants. The workload was absurd and simply unfeasible for a single person to manage.
- There were too few days off, disallowing breathing room (although several people did not skip a single day.) As a result, it was mostly people that don't have traditional 9-to-5 jobs that were the ones able to participate and finish.
- Many people experienced varying degrees of burnout due to the demands of the challenge when combined with the demands of daily life (including myself, though I had been posting daily poetry for about 250 days already before beginning the project).
- Most people who quit the project stopped participating in our community altogether due to self-guilt.
- Communication was overall poor between me, those who helped me run the project, and the participants. This is a major area for that needs growth for me personally.
- Changes introduced partway into the project were not always well-received due to only a handful of people attending the classes where we discussed and decided upon such alterations.
- The design of the challenge seemed somewhat inappropriate for those especially introverted (though there were plenty of exceptions here.)
- 100 Days was too long for such a design to be optimal.
The most evident beneficial effects of the challenge (to me) were:
- The poetic community on Steemit became somewhat more active / energetic.
- Depth of interaction between poets slightly increased overall.
- Many poets became more skilled, developing a closer bond with their craft.
- Many writers improved in their translation ability, where they worked with a mother tongue other than English.
- Many poets tried out different approaches and styles than they ordinarily would, broadening their palette and scope.
- The pressure of writing and posting every day aided participants in establishing greater discipline with regards to writing poetry.
- The constant pressure caused many to go deeper into their unique poetic voice and learn how to overcome various degrees of burnout.
- Most of us made several new friends.
- The poetry classes were enriching and those participating stated they grew significantly from that forum being available to them.
- Since the challenge was so long and only a small percent of people made it to the end, there was a great feeling of satisfaction produced from completing it.
Conclusion
The design of the challenge, while having plenty of (rather severe) flaws, managed to prove rather fruitful, as well. It is tempting to be hard on oneself when experiencing personal shortcomings. Realism as well as idealism are useful here. Since it was the first time I have ever spearheaded such an ambitious effort, I was bound to be somewhat naive about everything it would entail.
This post is by no means conclusive, so please add your reflections in a post or comment if you feel called to do so. You can use the "Thorns & Roses" approach that I did, listing 10 negative and 10 positive aspects of the challenge design, or come up with your own scheme. I look forward to reading your reflections and hope you have an excellent day!
Until next time,
Daniel / @d-pend
Writing & Images
By @d-pend
6/27/18
Huge thanks to all of our donors!
- @d-pend (1000 SBD and 300 STEEM)
- @violetmed (110 SBD)
- @hopehuggs (50 SBD)
- @girlbeforemirror (20 SBD)
- @taliakerch (15 SBD)
- @yahialababidi (15.017 STEEM)
- @carmalain7 (11.11 SBD)
- @madushanka (10 SBD)
- @firststeps (8 STEEM)
- @mineopoly (1 STEEM & 6 SBD)
- @moeknows (5.44 SBD)
- @nikolina (5 SBD)
- @hazem91 (5 SBD)
- @whack.science (5 SBD)
- @rensoul17 (5 SBD)
- @josediccus (5 STEEM)
- @naquoya (3 SBD)
- @corderosiete (3 SBD)
- @nicholas83 (2 SBD)
- @acousticsteveo (2 SBD)
- @trucklife.family (2 SBD)
- @silentscreamer (2 STEEM)
- @hartfloe (1.337 SBD)
- @johnrenald (1 SBD)
- @flysky (1 SBD)
- @zeleiracordero (1 SBD)
- @transcript-junky (1 SBD)
- @zulacut (0.6 SBD)
- @realnairda (0.5 SBD)
- @akdx (0.25 SBD)
- @emekasegun (0.2 SBD)
- @setiagunawan (0.1 SBD)
- @nasrol (0.1 SBD)
- @rexdickson (0.1 SBD)
To donate, send STEEM or SBD to @d-pend or @steemitpoetry. Donations go towards the prize pool of this challenge, and any above that will be powered up to @steemitpoetry, an account to support the creation of poetry on the STEEM blockchain. Thank you very much to all who have contributed thus far!
Hello Daniel,
I was going to cross the finish line no matter what, and I did. Technically, I missed two days, one because I did not see the challenge in time and the other because of some sickly stuff that was happening in my life during the challenge; my Taurus nature kept me in focus and I am so glad as I really loved the praxis of a daily presentation to the public. I write a lot daily no matter what is going on and so that was never going to be a challenge for me, it’s the art of constructing something from it (the daily observance and musings) that takes the process to the next level; then there is my bizarre obsession with trying to put out in public the best I can do (from my perspective as a rather gritty, low-fi kind of person), rather than just putting something out just to slide across the finish line (daily) and thinking about working on it later. In general it took me about three hours a day for this challenge (some days it was like ten minutes, others more, the average came to three hours) before the rules changed halfway through — time well spent.
Personally, I love the 100 day challenge of one poem a day straight through and I would have been more strict if it were my challenge (and not added anything to that outline). That was basically what I signed up for. It was the addition of major stuff that became difficult to fit in, given the poem a day — when I actually give feedback (like I was taught in school) it takes a good deal of time to read, write, read again, process and ponder the layers and feeling of the piece, etc… that is a lot of time. As I said above, I just cannot do it half way — I realize that it was written that feedback could be a short thing, however, I was doing that all along, the idea of critique (proper) was a whole other challenge, and one I would suggest is more challenging than putting out a poem a day. But, I did it for three weeks (I think), and voiced my opinion and frustrations. When I found out that it was actually just an option and that the new rules were being pushed, and ignored by so many others I felt a little betrayed by the process of following them, of adhering to the structure when others did not (and at the peril of some major things in my life). At that point I felt completely alienated and a bit like a fool, the one that actually follows the rules while the other cool kids did what they wanted (I actually read your posts and updates to the last line and reached out for clarity when needed). I learned the lesson of the red shoes, once again. lol.
In the process I found others that I simple adore, respect, admire, and am a new fan of — that was indeed part of the winning aspect of this process — most of those people had been commenting on my work from the beginning for the most part. I feel that most of us were looking at the other players and pieces entered, it’s just that one does not always have to comment and still love the piece, and as we all know, you only have so much monies to push around daily. I will say that the pieces I was able to give a proper critique on were wonderful and I probably would not have otherwise, and I’m so glad for doing it now as I will always follow them (the poets I was assigned) and see what beauty they are giving to the world.
In the end, I did what I set out to do, which was a solid poem a day, and I did. I’m not a competitive person, so the incentive to “win” is just not part of my world view — it is nice to be acknowledged, but it is still an outer world attachment of sorts and has no bearing on the deeper work. Hell, I never enter my work to be published or chase any of that (not because I look down on it, rather, I am not motivated by it, and everyone knows writers, especially poets make no real monies) I am simply living a creative life.
The process was fantastic!
Thank you for the journey and the lessons, reflections, and gifts it brought into my sphere.
Ho’oponopono
Hi! ☻
I wrote my reply here.
I have, though, cut and pasted the most important parts:
I have to say that this challenge has discovered a new facet of Katya (I'm still afraid to shout about it) - writing her thoughts down in a form of poetry. I've never done this before and still can't evaluate the impact it has on my day-to-day life... Although I didn't participate in the challenge, it has enriched me enormously: from meeting a bunch of interesting people, to meeting a bunch of new worlds!!!! Every person is a whole world with its "first snow", "first love" "first fight", I had a chance to go through this much during such short period of time!
I'm not even mentioning all I have learnt from you guys, all the participants of the challenge and the poetry class: from English words that were new to me to some splendid poets, I've never heard of.
I'm so grateful that @dobartim, an incredibly hardworking person, with a personality of a leader, posted every day about Steem Schools and got me interested in it; that's how I found all you guys, and had a chance to be a part of something huge, energetically wise! And then @d-pend made me stay, you're a really sensitive person who had this pressure of running the challenge and the class, but you have never made us feel this pressure, and I'm not even talking about your way of reciting poetry, paying attention to the punctuation and author's intentions, I enjoyed your every read!
It's a pity that I didn't have a chance to get to know @carmalain7 better, he is a treasure!
And I can't not to mention Guy @geekorner, who has opened to me a world of critique, he has taught me that giving critique is art and hard work. He made me find my way here on steemit!
<333
My personal gratitude to @d-pend, @carmalain7, @geekorner @tygertyger, @hazem91, @whack.science, @sayee @acousticsteveo, @mamadini , @yahialababidi, @girlbeforemirror, @prydefoltz, @nerdykim, @sansoncarrasco, @hartfloe and other lovely people, whom I forgot to mention due to my memory, that sucks )
<333
Katya,
It was a true pleasure getting to know you a little bit in class, your presence in a space is always lovely, gracious, and interactive. <3
Thank you.
It was my pleasure, Niish, to get to know you - a person with many talents, a busy woman, who however found the time to not only make it through the challenge, but to be present in the poetry class from time to time!
<3
Although I only watched this happen from afar, I can concur that I agree with all of the positive benefits that you have listed. Your negative effects list may be true as well, but I didn't happen to see much of them in affect. My main point I would like to iterate is that you @dpend should be extremely proud of yourself for the undertaking. Not only did it help you in real life with your ego and your outlook (which I saw very obviously outside of Steemit), but it raised the vibration of your service to other-selves, which is a great need of the creator from us. Not only did this help raise the abilities and appreciations of the participants, but it raised the vibration of the collective consciousness of this world. Basking in your unique light is a privelege to anyone, and I have felt that since I met you. As an addendum to this main point, everyone who participated should be very proud of themselves as well for exercising the faith necessary to participate, which takes energy exertion, but also the inevitably caused raising of your individual faith and knowledge capacity, which, I believe, is one of the greatest gifts of the creator. Rejoice all, and keep writing!
Hello d-pend,
this challenge was a huge undertaking and you were never to know how it would progress until it actually was underway, to have over a 100 people taking part at the beginning is s huge no. to work with and evaluate.
This is your first attempt and I feel it is only natural that you would learn along the way, as we all did.
I personally did not involved in the classes because the hours were hard for me, having 3 kids under 9 and the youngest being 1, my time is mostly with them and the classes were always around our dinner time, but really that could not be helped. I believe you managed really well, but initially may have bit off more than you could chew, but that is life and as long as we keep learning and moving forward it is all good. I commend you for all the time and effort you put in and are still putting in, it is no easy task and very time consuming.
The poetry challenge for me was amazing, a hugely positive experience, it really made me take the time daily to sit with myself and be creative. What a gift that is as a mum.
It also came at a time in my life where I needed that outlet that poetry gives me. I have felt myself grow and I have loved getting to meet and connect with some of the other poets on here. It really is so nice to be part of something where you are growing and learning with others. The weekly critique was a great way to get to know the poets behind the poems. Although I only ever gave praise as I amnot comfortable giving negative feedback as poems are so personal, but actually I never needed to anyway.
Thank you so much for creating this challenge and giving me the opportunity to really develop my writing and sit with myself and express myself and heal myself through my words. I think I will write a post too about my experience in the challenge.
My motives to join the challenge were:
The results were:
So, except for @Nikolina's part, the challenge was a 10 000% success.
I still remember thinking 'Hazem has to see this!' when I first came across this challenge. I'm sure you would find about it anyway but I'm glad you found about it from me, haha!
I still don't know how you managed to write and post every single day, without skipping and for that, I'll admire you forever! :D
hehe you know "admire" is a strong word right? so is "forever" :D
I'll quote something you told me recently:
:)
haha sure we do :D
Hazem, honestly, you're a brave man, if you've never written poetry before, being volunteraly engaged in the commitment of writing every day, I can say just BRAVO! For me you're one of those people who face challenges with a smile on their face!
I'm glad to get to know you better through your writing and occasional discord chit-chat ))
Hey @d-pend! It's great that you found a way to extend the series into several more (post-project analysis) posts. This will provide you adequate time to prepare and use that analysis to launch a (potential) new project. Since you have also kept the list of donors up I went ahead and sent another 0.5 SBD to @steemitpoetry (I think sending to @steemitpoetry is more of a "legitimate" way to do it). Here is the transaction :
I think that ONE productive way of coordinating our efforts is simply for me to scour your poetry project posts to find some quality poems and poets to then tweet out via my campaign. In this way we can extract value from each other's projects.
One suggestion is that you might organize the (potential) next project in a more one-by-month manner, which I think is more manageable for people, and allows you to then do a "monthly wrap-up analysis" (like this one). In this way the project has more structure, which will likely improve engagement by participants. Keep up the good work...
Though I only lasted 10 days, I liked the idea of the challenge. I happened to get into a work schedule that was prohibitive on writing. To be honest, I've never been that prolific of a writer anyway. It was a fun thing to try.
Don't be too hard on yourself. You did great. People will always find ways to be critical, it's in our nature.