Round of Words in 80 Days - Round 1 Starting 7th Jan 2013

It is time to jump straight into 2013. In need of a challenge or something to keep you accountable?

Well, don't I always come through for you?

Round of Words in 80 is going to be your new best friend!

As Kait Nolan (master of the Rounds) say on the website: 

"ROW80 is the challenge that champions the marriage of writing and real life."

The basics of the challenge:

You sign up with your own personal writing goals for each 80 day round, with 4 rounds a year. You then post twice a week on how you are going.

Upsides: you get to check in twice a week (which is good accountability) and you can adapt your goals if necessary (so realistic). (There is a great post about sustainable goals on the website, so check it out). Also, you have a fantastic sponsor who will offer you encouragement, as well as the rest of the community.

Downside: you do need to have your own blog for this, as you post your goals and check in for accountability from your blog. 

But if you already have your own blog, or have been thinking of setting one up for a while, now is a great time to do it!
You can do this for free through Blogger, Wordpress.com, Tumblr etc. (this, obviously, is a blogger based free blog).
However, I'm going to be covering in a future post about setting up your own domain, through a host like Bluehost. There are a number of advantages to this:
1. your domain will be yourname.com, rather than yourname.blogspot.com.au
2. your own domain appears to rank better in google than a url ending in blogspot.com, wordpress.com etc.
3. you have more power to customize.

I am currently in the process of changing my fitness blog over from a blogger site to being hosted by my own domain. So I will walk you through that processes as I do it.

Therefore, if you are starting up your blog but think you actually want to make something of it, look at whether you want to host it yourself.

I will be using Bluehost to start my fitness blog. Smart Passive Income Guy - Pat Flynn (my new love, you will be hearing more about him) recommends it and even has developed a YouTube video on how to set up a blog through Bluehost and Wordpress in 4 minutes!
So, if you want to host a blog, and want to support a struggling writer (aka, me :D), feel free to use my affiliate link. It won't cost you anything extra, but I will get a commission, 10% of which will always come back to hosting more giveaways, competitions, fundraisers on my blogs.

Check out Pat's video on how to quickly set a website up with Bluehost. I will be going through the process in a later blog more slowly, so if you want to be talked through it more, just wait a little bit.

ROW 80 and 100firstdrafts:

Now, the reason that I'm so excited about this challenge is because I was forward enough to ask to be a sponsor - and they said YES! 

So, I will be writing inspirational posts and going around the participants' blogs and leaving encouraging comments.

Having a look at the profiles of some of the other sponsors, I feel a bit awed, as I'm not yet published (though ask me again by the end of the 2013! My optimism alone will get me there!). 

However, I'm going to be the most supportive sponsor I can be!

You will also have to put up with me posting twice a week about my goals. (But I won't let it detract from the other great content.)

So, what are my measurable goals? 

Well, I want to be slightly realistic (and not scary everyone else off of course, I'm modest like that) so I'm going to say 5,000 words 5 days a week. I'm actually hoping to do 7 days, but will keep it realistic. 

Also: a blog post for both 100firstdrafts and fitbuster.blogspot.com.au 5 days a week, and hopefully three articles for article marketing a week (though this is first to be cut when I start fading).

I'll start with that.

What will you start with? 

If you do join, let me know and I'll link to your blog!