It hasn’t even been a week, and I have blown writing every day. I realized this last night after being in bed for about 5 minutes. My wife told me to get up and go do it because I wasn’t tired. I was tired and comfortable. At that moment, I was OK with not getting a post in that day. I think it also helped that I didn’t know what I was going to write about.
You may remember, since it was only a few days ago, that I started this because of a webinar that talked about the benefits of doing this. Most of the writing advice I have read in books, heard on podcasts, and seen in videos suggests a daily writing routine. Some say write 350 or 500 words before allowing yourself to do something else. Others have daily word count goals. Some say they try to write every day but do take days off. Others stick to writing something every day.
During my week-long sprint, I focused on getting just one sentence done. The idea was to make it small enough that I could reasonably do it every day. What was challenging was tying it to my daily routine. In other words, after I made coffee, or after I finished it and put the cup in the sink, I would write a sentence. I was traveling, and there wasn’t anything routine. But I still managed to write something every day that week. I continued writing every day for another three weeks.
I thought getting out of the house helped me write more consistently. Being away from home and all its distractions. So the plan was to go to coffee shops to write. But I didn’t follow through with that, and I was still able to write every day. Plus, I didn’t know where to go.
Then I realized that I don’t have an everyday routine. I don’t eat breakfast regularly. I do have coffee every day, but other than that, I don’t do anything in a set order. At some point in the morning, I end up going down a rabbit hole with a question that pops into my head, and I end up researching it on the internet. Then it becomes a push and pull: I need to be writing, but I’ll do that in an hour; that turns into four, and I think I have something to write about, but then I realize it isn’t related to what I originally set out to do. And then there’s always tomorrow to get back on track. At home, I see the mountain of things I should be doing around the house, but I have committed to writing. If only I would write something.
So now I am starting again. Hopefully it is better than my WORDLE streak. Somehow, I keep forgetting days, and I get “Current Streak: 1”