WEGO Health Blog

Though our Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge has officially ended because of the beginning of the beautiful new month of May, I’ve got one more prompt for you to consider! Look back upon April and write about your HAWMC experience en masse. Now, don’t worry – you don’t have to write this post today or even tomorrow – but I think it would be a good way to put the proverbial bow on the whole HAWMC endeavor.

Whether you did every daily challenge or cherry-picked a few favorite prompts – your blogger-abilities were put to the test and, more importantly, put on display! I had the opportunity to “meet” new bloggers with individual blog-voices and enjoy the unique stories you all tell. I know your passionate blogsploration will only continue to grow from here and, I hope you had a lot of fun trying to write a little differently than you might normally.

Some of you affirmed your distaste for writing poetry (but I’m so glad you went there anyway!) and others eagerly took advantage of a time given to rhyme.

What’s awesome? You have a whole archive in your blog of your April 2011! Now you can revisit these posts for ideas when you might feel writer’s block or Blogger Burnout – and you also have proof that, hey, you’re great at what you do! (If you haven’t yet, make sure to go back and tag all of your HAWMC posts so you can find them again (or link to them) in your blog.)

When you feel ready to recap your HAWMC experience, I hope you’ll share it with us here. We’d love to see what you really connected with and what part of the challenge was, well, a challenge. We’re planning to do this sort of activity again (perhaps late in 2011) so your feedback is a) super-important to me and b) can be implemented to make the next blog challenge even better! A few things to consider: What was it like to write creatively about your condition? What did you learn about writing and blogging through HAWMC? Which prompt really inspired with you? Which prompt(s) were your least favorite? What do you wish you’d had the chance to write about? Whose post(s) did you love? How can we get even more bloggers involved next time?

In fact, if you have a minute – I made a quick survey with a couple of these questions and would love your thoughts! You can take it here and share as much or as little as you like about your HAWMC experience.

As I mentioned in our 30th prompt post – stay tuned because we’ve got a lot of HAWMC to recap here on the blog and over in the WEGO Health Community – so even if your resting your writing-brain, come back and check out what we loved most.

It’s the last day of April! We finished the Health Activist Writer’s Challenge! Congrats to everyone who made it through and anyone who joined us for a prompt or two.

And though the challenge itself ends today, be sure to stay tuned for the first week of May because, though we’ve got a new theme for May (and lots of posts to go with it) – we’ve got a whole lot of HAWMC to recap, a winner to select and announce, and discussions to continue here on the blog. It’s going to be great.

But without further ado, here’s our 30th prompt of April…

Gobbledygook Day. In health communities there is a certain lexicon that only those on “the inside” can understand. Whether it’s a hashtag, an abbreviation, or something related to maintaining your health – making up words or being creative with words we use often is a good way to build community and it’s also just fun to have an inside joke that you share with others you connect with.

So today, for our last prompt, make up a new word to use. Your new word can be a combination of two words (portmanteau) or complete non-sense or gobbledygook.

What is the new word? How do you pronounce it? What does it mean? Be sure to use it in a sentence.

Will you use this word beyond today’s HAWMC post?

Health Cliché. A cliché is “an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, rendering it a stereotype, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. The term is frequently used in modern culture for an action or idea which is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Typically a pejorative, “clichés” are not always false or inaccurate; a cliché may or may not be true.” We hear them all the time, especially in writing online and in conversation with people we don’t know that well. And the worst is, perhaps, when someone says something they think is helpful or novel – but it’s actually been said 1,000 times before.

As writers, we’ve been conditioned to actually avoid clichés because they aren’t effective writing. But it’s ok to write about cliches – so let’s do that today. Start out by thinking of a health cliché that really bugs you. What are you tired of people asking you or saying to you again and again about your health or health condition? Write it down. Then, instead of critiquing it (as we often do) – today, reclaim it! Take that cliché back and turn it around so you make it something you could be comfortable hearing or even wearing around on a sandwich board. What if you could always reclaim those phrases, those words, or those expressions related to your condition? By putting yourself in the control room and not letting others dictate your verbiage, you can show your community that it’s not what you say but what you mean.

How did you reclaim the cliché?

“I used to be ____ but I’m not any more.” This is a prompt I am borrowing from an exercise I did once in a writing workshop. The idea is: you start every paragraph of your short story (or your poem) with the sentence “I used to be…” and end each with “but I’m not any more.” Believe it or not – this sentence makes for a really emotional piece of writing.

Whether you want to write a poem or a more traditional blog post format today, go with your instincts. As Health Activists, you’ve taken a unique, empowering, and challenging journey from patient to advocate, then to now. From observer to presenter. Or just from past-you to current-you. And you’re going to continue to evolve into future-you. That’s something we all have in common.

So think back to when you got started – what were you like back then? How have you changed? Whether you were carefree or fearful, naive or hopeful – that’s an important stage in your health blogger story. Your achievements – no matter how “small” or gradual – are important to gauge, not only for your own affirmation of bloggerdom, but also as an example to your community or anyone in your life who looks up to you. You can write about your Health Activist journey or about “growing up” in general. You’ve inevitably progressed, think about how today.

You can think of today’s post as a list of “I used to be ___[fill in the blank] but I’m not any more” sentences (that would make an Anaphora poem) or you can use the sentence as a paragraph-starter.

How did writing this post feel?

Quote prompt! Today use a quote to set you off and writing. Pick a quote that inspires you positively or charges you negatively.

This is a good idea to come back to if you’re ever feeling a bit of Blogger Burnout or just want to give your blogging-engine a jump-start. Grabbing a quote from a famous speech, a fellow blogger, a news article, a poem, a song you like (or think is hilarious), a movie, or someone you know can be the perfect little push you need to get writing.

You could start by paraphrasing the quote, putting it into your own words, or by explaining what you think the quote means. You could also start by responding to it directly, without thinking, and free-write for a bit. (Make sure you cite your source (if you can) and give whoever said it “first” a little nod.)

Do you have a favorite website for finding quotes? Share it with us!

How did you incorporate the quote into your post for today? Any advice for future quote-integration?

Spirit Animal Day. A spirit animal (or power animal) is a figure used to represent one’s inner qualities embodied by an animal. Tracing back to ancient spirituality, you can think of it as a patron saint or guardian angel-animal. A spirit or power animal ”guides, helps or protects individuals, lineages and nations. In the shamanic worldview, everything is alive, bearing an inherent virtue, power and wisdom. Power animal(s) represent a person’s connection to all life, their qualities of character, and their power.”

Give your health or condition a spirit animal. Write today about it as though it is that animal. What qualities of the animal do you or your condition possess that are positive? How is this animal a metaphor for your experiences? What qualities of the animal would you love to tap into when needed?

What animal did you choose?

Red Pen Day. As bloggers, we work to keep our content as relevant and “new” as possible. But sometimes we can benefit from repurposing content we’ve created in the past by giving it a little TLC and perhaps a new coat of paint. You worked hard to create all your blog posts – why not borrow from yourself and reduce, reuse, recycle? It’s not a crime – in fact, it’s one way to combat Dreaded Blogger Burnout.

For today’s HAWMC post – start by finding an old post of yours from months (or years) ago. Revise it as radically as you can (use Track Changes in Word or red font in your blog). Compare your old and new versions.

Sometimes one of the most heartening thing we can do as writers is to see how far we’ve come with regards to our writing. It can be difficult to notice, but every day our voices and our blogs mature and get better. Looking back at an old post could be slightly embarrassing (I wrote that?!) but it can be a great indicator of how far you’ve come. By doing today’s exercise you can see that – though hitting “publish” on our blogs can feel like a big leap into permanence – our writing can be a living, breathing, and evolving thing. Like your own body, you are also in control of your body of work no matter when you create it. Be proud of that and reaffirm your ownership from time to time.

In the post you chose to revise – what changes did you make? What clarifications did you need? Publish the new version.

Ambitious Activist Challenge Add-on: Post both versions (the before and after) in your submission.

What did you notice in rereading your old post?

Best Moment of Last Week. What was the best thing that happened to you last week? Did you have an a-ha moment or get great news?

Take 15 minutes and write about it and relive it. What made this moment so great? How does sharing great news or happy thoughts influence your community or blog readers? Victories and good feelings can be contagious.

What was your favorite thing about last week?

Dr.Seuss Day! Write a post inspired by the famous children’s author Dr. Seuss known for his children’s books that used lots of made-up words and rhymes. Fun fact(s): In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Accordingly, William Ellsworth Spaulding, the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin who later became its Chairman, compiled a list of 348 words he felt were important for first-graders to recognize and asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words.^[17] Spaulding challenged Geisel to “bring back a book children can’t put down.” ^[18] Nine months later, Geisel, using 236 of the words given to him, completed The Cat in the Hat.

Now for today’s HAWMC you don’t have to write a whole children’s story – but write a post today using as many rhymes as you can. It can be a poem with end-rhymes or a paragraph with internal rhymes. If you need some help rhyming try this rhyming dictionary generator or this one.

What did you decide to write about?

Prescribed! As a counterpoint to some past prompts where we called out some misconceptions and wrote an account of the day there is a cure – today let’s envision our doctors have an idea and prescribe a wacky treatment.

As health bloggers, you have probably tried and written about a number of treatments both pharmaceutical and alternative. In the spirit of disclosure you want to share with your trusting community, but you can’t necessary tell others to try what you think works (disclaimers!). So you’re no stranger to walking that fine line between sharing your experience and giving health advice.

Today – don’t worry about that line! Have fun with writing about this prescription – it’s not real. What is something you wish were a treatment for your health? How does this prescription work? Is it a medication or is it a regimen? Get creative and don’t worry about being realistic – it’s fiction!

What is the wacky prescription?