Reviving the Musings

I’ve just read a great post about writing every day, even if all you can manage is “can’t write today; too sick.” It made a lot more sense than most posts I’ve read about writing every day, which is a concept I’ve long bridled at. The idea, as I see it, is that all words generate more words. Writing here, making this post, planning to follow up on it … no, it’s not fiction, and some days it won’t even be terribly polished. But it will generate more words. And words will generate more words. And so forth. They don’t have to be stunning, prima donna words, just words.

I’ve long struggled with keeping this blog updated. Partly, I set my sights too high. I read all the same blogs other knitters/readers/political students/sociology buffs read. They’re wonderful. Frequently, they’re insightful, or funny, or poignant, or simply very, very good writing. Mine is – not. So I struggled to add interesting content, to add pictures, to only post what I thought others might find witty and entertaining. I had convinced myself that to claim my little piece of web property, I had to beautify the land, have open houses, and give away cookies. But, you know, Blogger has how many thousands of blogs? How many of them can one person read? How many of them are exactly what this is – one person speaking into the void, trying to increase the signal-to-noise ratio? How many of them are just convenient ways to journal? I had lost sight of the fact that this piece of property right here? This is mine. And if no one reads these words but me, they are still worth writing.

So I’m going to try an experiment. Some days, those words might be fiction. Some days, I might get an essay idea out of a random thought. Some days, I might just amuse myself. These are my rules:

1. I will write some words, somewhere, every day for the next year, beginning on April 30, 2009 and ending on April 30, 2010.
2. It will not always be here. It might be in a notebook that I carry around. It might be in a personal journal that’s too real to share. But words will make it onto paper/screen in some form everyday.
3. I will post my running count of consecutive days at the bottom of each post. I will not lie or cheat. If you don’t see a post here but my count increments, you can bet there are words somewhere.
4. To amuse myself, I’ll also track my cumulative word count. Because I’d like to see a big number getting bigger. (But 3 words is still writing for the day.)
5. I will consider any plotting, outlining, brainstorming, or other “writerly” activities as writing, so long as it produces something that can be written down.
6. I will not immediately launch myself into a despair-fueled drive to eat every item in the house containing sugar should I miss a day. Or a week. Or even a month. I will simply remind myself that words beget words, and try again tomorrow.

I think 6 rules are enough for right now. Really, there’s no use setting myself up for failure. So quick to forget. I clearly need to remind myself of “anti-failure” clause #6, above. The virtue of this exercise is in the attempt. So by writing this post I’ve bettered myself. Even if I don’t write again for the next 364 days, I cannot fail. (Take that, self-esteem monster!)

Consecutive days of writing: 001
Word count since 4/30/09: 591