Reay Jespersen

So I dropped the ball a week ago.

In failing my first attempt at 100 words a day for 100 days, I got back on the saddle and did it right the second time. Not only that, blew past the original 100 days and kept going. And I recently amped that up to 200 words a day. Not a lot, perhaps, for someone aspiring to be a writer, but far more than I’ve (perhaps ever) consistently written in the past.

Then last week some time I woke up in the morning and realized that I hadn’t done my words the day before. We’d had friends over the previous night, and my watch alarm had gone off at the set time - a last-ditch reminder I used to get my words done if I hadn’t done so previously each day - but I didn’t do them. Time was, particularly amid the 100 words a day for 100 day challenge, I would’ve been mortified. But I was strangely alright with it.

In part I think it’s because I realized that while I want to make a living from writing, every writer has his own approach to getting that writing done. And while I’d stuck firmly to the 100 words a day for 100 days challenge (v2.0) and beyond, while the challenge was clearly designed to get a person into the habit of writing every day, that never really took for me. It was always something I went out of my way to do (first thing in the (early) morning, over lunch, etc.), or was reminded to do (typically via watch alarm and sometimes via Jackie).

And it was shortly after that, in an I Should Be Writing interview podcast, that I heard China Mieville say that he doesn’t really have any particular approach to writing. He doesn’t do it every day, nor at the same time, nor in the same place, nor anywhere near a consistent volume of words.

The point is, every writer approaches writing differently. Doing the daily thing was never really my bag, and at times felt like I was just writing to fulfill the agreement with myself, not writing becuase I had anything I was particularly passionate about writing. And there’s a strong argument to be made for stopping (or changing tactics) when something you love doing starts feeling like an obligation.

Hence, as I lay there awake on the morning of realization that I hadn’t written for the first time in what I figure is in the range of a year and four months (give or take), I was actually ok with it. Time to revisit the drawing board and see what else I can try in order to keep the writing both flowing and interesting to me. Any and all suggestions on that score are, as always, welcomed.

Talk soon.