I have been writing every single day since, approximately, some time in July. It is not an impressive feat worthy of bragging, but it is something. Over the past dozen weeks, I’ve completed three different writing projects, and I am halfway through my fourth. In terms of word count, I’ve accumulated about 120,000 words in the above projects alone, plus some poetry, blogs, and random stuff that I scribbled down to procrastinate.
“Do you ever do anything for fun, other than read or write?” My roommate asked me.
“These projects will never write themselves,” I told him.
If I were to count “writing regularly,” it would date back to either January or somewhere during the winter semester of my first year. Over that period of time, I’ve written a mix of fan fiction, blog posts, and one-shot original stories – stuff I now call “practice writing”. In terms of the number of finished projects, I have none. Everything was scattered, one-off, and the only blog that I’d managed to keep was halted with the end of my exchange semester. It did not feel complete. There was no closure.
So what changed?
In an attempt to find that closure this summer, I began writing short stories inspired by my semester on exchange, as I was determined to make it into a collection of some sort. Writing became my buffer as I returned to my normal, hopeless life in Montreal. I did not just write my projects – I worked on them with the aim of publication. If I want my work to get published, I need people – readers, writers, and editors who could provide feedback and help me get to the next level. I needed a network I never cared to build before.
Thus, being the 21st-Century millennial that I am, I found a few writing groups. The first day I went to one of them, I was met with a question:
“So, do you want to take writing seriously? Do you want to make a career out of it?”
For the first two seconds, I was too busy berating myself for not thinking about this question to actually articulate an answer. My final decision was affirmative. Until that moment, I had no idea how appealing the notion was to me.
“Then I would suggest you write every day,” said the person, “I’m a big supporter of writing everyday…”
Then he went on and on about the benefits of daily writing sessions, how he did it, and what he achieved by doing it. I, on the other hand, was skeptical. I would definitely write every day until I finished my project, but I had no idea what to write about afterwards! And what about school? Maybe I could keep the habit up over the summer, to keep my miserable, lazy, unemployed, squatter-self occupied, but surely everything would get out of control once school started?
He picked up on my hesitation.
“I’m not saying you do it,” he said, “I’m just saying, if that’s something that you want, that you think you should do, then you should talk to yourself and make an agreement with yourself.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
“There’s no trying,” he said, “There’s only doing and not doing.”
I neither agreed nor objected.
Over the next few weeks, while I poured my heart into my project, I decided writing every day sounded appealing, and I would do it for as long as I could. You’ve seen where it got me.
Writing everyday does not come easy to me, even with the agreement. There were days when words just did not flow, and I had to force myself to type, but that was okay. It was one of the deals I made with myself: I would write even if every single word felt like I was puking wax.
“Quality doesn’t matter,” I would tell myself, “Just keep pushing those letters out, for the next fifteen minutes. I agreed to do this.”
And then I’d sit down, open my current work in progress or a blank blog page, and word-vomit for the next quarter of an hour. More often than not, the end result was of acceptable quality, and I’d feel a rush after the timer set off. A curious thing happened as I passed the five-week mark: I could not feel the same rush after fifteen minutes of writing every day. I wanted to write more, to finish my project. I even had to set myself a word limit: a daily average of a thousand words for Monday to Thursday, two thousand each for Friday and Saturday, and a full chapter (usually 3.5-4k) on Sunday. After all, I had to pass all my classes. Writing became an addiction.
Speaking of which, this technique works with substance abuse, too. Due to the content of my current work in progress, I had done intensive research on addiction, recovery, and relapses. One point was emphasized by virtually every single post I read: one can only achieve a sustained recovery if they promised themselves to stay sober.
How the heck did I not see this before? I’m a psychology student, for Freud’s sake!
It’s been only three months since I started writing every day, almost two since I made that agreement with myself. It’s been working superbly. I do not want to promise anything, but from what I can see, this habit will keep itself as long as I remind myself about it when times are hard.
So what is it that you want to make a habit? Eating at least one healthy meal? Reading? Going for a walk? Coding? Whatever it is, it’s probably time to sit down with yourself, talk to yourself, see what you’re ready for, and make an agreement.
Images Obtained from:
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja…
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja…