Announcing the 2020 December Writing Challenge: "Accentuate the Positive"

“The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.”—Anna Quindlen

The act of writing is always a personal one. Even with supposedly dry, technical content, authors can’t help bringing a piece of themselves to the work.

This is why at SolarWinds, we eagerly anticipate the December Writing Challenge each year. Since 2016, the THWACK community has participated in an exercise allowing us to peek into the minds, hearts, and lives of the folks we know as colleagues, coworkers, and friends. The daily word or phrase may start with a point of history, technology, or culture, but it almost always teaches us more about each other—a perfect reflection of the SolarWinds community, philosophy, and ideals.

About the Writing Challenge

Throughout December, one writer—chosen from among the SolarWinds staff and THWACK MVPs—will be the lead writer each day. You (the THWACK community) are invited to contribute your own thoughts each day on the lead post and the topic itself.

Comments—which can be anything from a thoughtful response to the lead article; to your own bit of writing; to an image evocative of the prompt for the day; to a video—will garner you friendship, camaraderie, and 200 THWACK points per day. (A gentle reminder to our community: points will be awarded after the challenge is complete. If you pester me about them before then, I'll have to give you The Stern Geek Stare, and nobody wants that.)

You’ll find each day’s post under the "December Writing Challenge 2020" tag . Take a moment now to “follow” it so you don’t miss a single post. As in past years, I’ll write a summary of the week and post it in the Geek Speak forum​.

About “Accentuate the Positive”

This year, the changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have been an inescapable fact and facet of our daily existence. To ignore it in the last month of the year would be akin to ignoring the elephant who’s not just in the room but sitting in your favorite chair clipping its toenails.

But SolarWinds—and by extension the writing challenge—has always been about finding solutions, personal growth, and even joy in the face of a challenge. Our theme this year is “Accentuate the Positive,” giving us a chance to focus on the good things we’ve learned, acquired, or become as we continue to move toward the “next normal.”

To help you get your creative juices flowing, here’s the word list in advance.

Everyone here on THWACK is looking forward to reading your thoughts!

Date	Title	Author
Dec 1	Connecting in a Disconnected World	Leon Adato
Dec 2	Show Us Your Office Space (Whether improvised, shared, or particularly beautiful, WFH offices have been our work home (not) away from home in 2021.)	Paul Guido (MVP)
Dec 3	Pet Peeves: Home Office Edition ((my officemate never puts the dishes in the dishwasher) <Did you really just microwave salmon?>)	Jez Marsh (MVP)
Dec 4	I Was Today Years Old When I Learned	Jeremy Mayfield (MVP)
Dec 5	Tonight in Pandemic Viewing...	Jenne Barbour
Dec 6	Easy Home IT Upgrades	Sascha Giese
Dec 7	Separation Anxiety	Olivia Palmer
Dec 8	My New Hobby: Lessons Learned (aka Intro to Woodworking: Still have all my digits and my eye is getting better.)	Kevin Sparenberg
Dec 9	I Didn't Think I'd Ever Need __________	Adam Timberly (MVP)
Dec 10	What Day Is It? (Seriously, without looking at your phone...)	Mark Roberts (MVP)
Dec 11	Connecting With My Community
Dec 12	Keeping an Active Mind	Tom Iannelli (MVP)
Dec 13	Quarantine Cuisine (What new recipes did you make or attempt?)	Destiny Bertucci
Dec 14	Am I on Mute? Being Heard While Remote	Kathleen Walker
Dec 15	Sweatpants are now business attire (Pants, or Nah?)	Jake Muszynski (MVP)
Dec 16	The Growing Pandemic Family (From betas in a fishbowl to babies in a bassinet.)	Liz Beavers
Dec 17	Pets on Zoom	Peter Di Stefano
Dec 18	Finding Friendship	Faria Akram
Dec 19	Overcoming Anxiety	Maisie Sackett
Dec 20	Today, I tried... (New hobbies to get you away from your computer)	Danielle Livy
Dec 21	Not All Introverts WFH	Rebecca Smith
Dec 22	Confessions of a Shopaholic (Amazon Prime is at my house at least once daily.)	Kim Cecchini
Dec 23	Taking PTO and Going...Nowhere (Zen and the Art of the Staycation )	Lisa Sherwin-Wulf
Dec 24	All Dressed Up With Nowhere to Go	Patrick Hubbard
Dec 25	How to Safely Entertain Guests During a Pandemic	Thomas LaRock
Dec 26	Adventures in Home Tech Support (TFW you're in the in-home help desk)	Holger Mundt (MVP)
Dec 27	Ending My Doomscroll	Chrystal Taylor
Dec 28	"When This Is Over, …" (Post-Lockdown Me)	Alli Rael
Dec 29	What I hated loved about 2020.	Tiffany Nels
Dec 30	Monitoring Mixology - Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bourbon (You know it's quarantine drinking when the liquor store calls to find out what YOU have in stock.) (Share your favorite quarantin-y cocktail recipes!)	Thomas LaRock
Dec 31	What’s the Plural of Apocalypse?	Grace Gilker