I'm Back!

If I had to pick a song lyric that encompasses the past week, it would be

When at first you dont succeed. Dust yourself off and try again - Aaliyah

During that period, I decided to participate in the 2ArticlesWeek writing challenge again for the following reasons:

1. To improve my writing skills.

2. To get that golden badge

I know, I know number 2 sounds pretty cliche, but lets be honest, getting a badge for a writing challenge is pretty awesome. Ive learned a lot through this challenge, so grab a snack and lets reminisce on what Ive learned.

From Newbie to Cross-posting queen

When I think back to my first attempt at the challenge, I was like a deer in headlights. I had no idea what I was doing or how to write engaging content. But since then, I've come a long way baby! I've gotten better at things like writing catchy headlines and intro's that make people want to keep reading. Another area I've improved in is cross-posting. Before, I would just post on Hashnode, promote it on LinkedIn, j'ai fini(To my English-speaking folks, thats French for Im finished) But after reading Sean Coughlin's article on publishing to other platforms like Dev.to, I was like "Why didn't I think of that before? 🤦🏾, so I imported my posts to Dev.to, and never looked back. In fact, it helped me win this badge:

I mean, who doesn't love a good badge to add to their collection, right? But seriously, cross-posting has been a game changer for me and my blog's reach. But enough about that, onto another memory.

Tools of the Trade: Staying Organized and on Track

When I first did this challenge, I was very disorganized when it came to writing my posts. I would just pick on any random topic and post it whenever I felt like it. This time around, I want to become more consistent and organized with my writing, so I did some research on productivity tools that can help me develop a structured writing process, and lo and behold, a blogging managing template from Notion appear on my screen. I can honestly say that this tool has been sent from the skies above. It taught me how to pick a specific post type if I want to write about a certain topic and provide a checklist to ensure that I did things like write an SEO-friendly headline or write engaging LinkedIn posts to promote my articles. I can go on and on about how awesome this tool is, but I wont, let's move on.

Future Goals

Looking ahead to my next attempt at the 2Articles1Week challenge, I have some. First and foremost, I want to start writing about projects I have created and tutorial articles. I mean, as fun as writing reflective posts has been, I originally started Chrissy Codes to display my growing knowledge in coding and to motivate other non-tech workers to start their own coding journeys. So, I am going to dust off my keyboard and put my current knowledge to the test. Maybe Ill have a cool project like a device that teleports you to your next destination. Only time will tell. 😉

Conclusion

So there you have it folks! My second attempt and let me tell you, I kicked its butt this time around! I've come a long way from being a deer in the headlights to a seasoned pro. I've got my writing process down pat and I'm ready to take on the world (or at least the world of blogging). Next time around, I'm going to take things to the next level and write about some of the cool projects I've been working on. Because let's be real, who doesn't love reading about someone else's coding adventures? Thanks for following along on my journey and I hope you'll join me for round three!

Thanks for reading! If you want to stay in the loop, why not click on the envelope icon on top to subscribe to my blog and follow me on Hashnode? That way, youll be the first to know when I post more writing challenge recaps and other tech stuff. And if you want to connect with me, check out my socials on Linkfree. Id love to be your coding buddy! 😊

Credits

Goodbye GIF by gif-database

Thank you On to the next by Jimmy Arca

On to the next by morgafic