Cash and Prizes Abound

After 55 days of consistent writing, I can now safely report to you a couple of things I’ve learned. Firstly, I’m stubborn. Secondly, and more importantly, I dislike the word learnt vs. learned. I can’t tell you why I dislike it other than it feels weird in my brain, so there’s that.

I plan to continue writing and focusing on personal stories from my current life and random observations, balanced against past adventures and discoveries that I’d like to capture for posterity. There are many more stories to write, like that time I was nearly eaten alive by a Giant Pacific Sea Star while scuba diving in China Creek—I just don’t have pictures from way back then, but I assure you, it was both harrowing and epic in true Dropbear fashion.

Please feel free to send storey*suggestions to letters@MichaelDargie.com. ( *Canadian spelling? ;P )

I like this writing thing, and over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding more writing to the mix. The new stuff will be business-type stuff focusing on branding and creativity which will be posted on my company websites, Make More Creative and BrandJitsu (coming soon), respectively.

What else can I tell you about these past 55 days? 

Grammarly is fun, and now that I’m on a “five-week” writing streak, they’ve started sending me weekly insights. For the week of February 13 to 20, Grammarly checked 70,260 words for me, making me more productive than 97% of all Grammarly users. Believe it or not, my grammar was 92% more accurate than all Grammarly users, and I used more unique words than 98% of these same users—good thing I make up words all the time. Since I first started using Grammarly, it has checked 441,672 words for me, and I haven’t even used it to edit my early blog posts. Hot damn, lookit me streak!

My top three mistakes are:

1. Missing comma in a compound sentence
2. Missing comma after an introductory phrase
3. Squinting modifier (I had to look that one up, and yup, guilty)

Strangely enough, I've improved my apostrophe game even though Jennifer still catches an errant or missing one here and there. Still. Not bad. And the tones found in my writing are: Confident, Formal, Friendly, Optimistic, Assertive, and Joyful.

Speaking of Friendly and Joyful, it is almost time!

It’s coming up to the end of the month, which means it’s almost time for “The Daily Dropbear Blog Weird Monthly Prizes Award of Excellence” award. Everyone who has subscribed to this blog on my website is entered to win, and for every comment, suggestion, edit, and correction, you will get an additional entry. Last month, for example, Yvonne won a fabulous octopus mug from our friends at Salty Sea Dog Designs.

But wait, there's more.

What will it be this month? You’ll have to wait and see. I’ll be announcing the winners on March 1. Wait. Winners? Plural? Yep, I'll be doing one draw for subscribers on my personal site, and a second draw for followers on my Medium account. Good luck to everyone, and thank you for sharing this adventure with me.