Writing comes naturally to me. That was my assumption 6 years ago. At that time, I couldn’t wait to write. Everywhere I went, I saw things to write about. I had more ideas than time.
Some of these topics still live somewhere – Simplenote, Field Notes, Moleksine, Workflowy, iA Writer and elsewhere I probably lost track of. They’re literally scattered all over the place. Some are drafts yet to be refined, some are half-baked ideas weren’t worth perusing.
The point is, I really love to write. At the height of this obsession, I’d have rolled out a thousand-word draft without breaking much sweat. I relished the challenging of knocking the words in a fairly short time. Yes, the content would still be raw and the structure would require multiple revisions. But it was a joy to write. It was never a chore. I enjoyed the process of writing much like I enjoyed the feeling of having written.
Writing clears my mind. Makes my argument stronger. It’s a gauge of how much I understand about a topic. And nothing compares to how much mental space writing provides. It’s like lifting a heavy load from my brain, dumping it away so I can have the space to process other information. It creates margin. It gives me a much clearer picture holistically than if I had just process it mentally.
Writing requires dedication, space and constant practices. I haven’t been writing here regularly for the past 2 years. Tt shows. I pretty much struggle to string together a dozen words before stumbling. I had promised myself I’d set aside time and space at least twice a week to write. But after the initial optimism died down, I never followed through.
As with most things, it’s about starting small. I want to make a commitment here that I will publish 2 posts every week. And the post would’ve to be at least 100 words. Not too hard, right? I want to find my rhythm for writing and develop this as a habit again.
I know it wouldn’t be easy. As I’m typing this, I went to Fantastical and scheduled the calendar to include writing at 10pm to 10.30pm every Tuesday to Friday. Tuesday night would be the first draft, Wednesday night would be editing and then publishing. The process will start again on Thursday and then I’ll publish it Friday night. Monday is reserved for my weekly run. Weekends are for me to catch up on family and generally doing nothing. I figure as a start, having 4 nights of writing should suffice.
It’s all about getting started. Seems like I’ve gone beyond the 100-word target. It’s an encouraging start and I can’t wait to get more writing done.