[Applied Self-Confidence] Writing Daily #1

I realized a problem with myself: I wasn’t writing daily. Even though I was publishing essays daily, there were days I’d only write a few hundred words, so I agreed to dedicate myself to writing at least 500 words daily. If you want to be something, do it daily. This dedication has taken discipline, sacrifice, and stress. There are still days where I don’t write 500 words. Through all that, here are 425 words on what I learned:

Writing is therapy for me.

I still have depressive moments, where what dwells beneath expresses itself in dark thoughts, but I can escape by looking at my writing list and working toward completing what I must do next. There is no time for self-doubt and self-loathing when there’s work to do! My depression usually will appear over situational inadequacy and fear over hypotheticals. Diving into my writing and editing is not so much avoiding those realities. It’s carving out an alternative where I can get paid to do what I want.

500 words at a time.

Before I started Better Zombie, writing occasionally, publishing daily, then writing daily, I would waste time and feel like a failure. I’d waste hours browsing websites and waste days doing nothing. I’d still remain gainfully employed, it’s just my free time would be wasted on things that wouldn’t benefit me. Now, I have tangible products I can show to people, representing moments in my life, commenting on perspectives I may not necessarily need to feel anymore after I dumped those thoughts into words.

We’ve dredged through the negative.

That, I feel, is the most important thing that everyone must do. We cannot avoid our fears. When we address our stresses, we can become better. After I’ve exorcised those stress demons, it’s no longer as interesting for me to write slam pieces about certain concepts. Now, I want to focus on what my current objective is: to write “The Story.” I’m doing that by spending more of that writing time building that world and building my skills with writing fiction. Just yesterday, I stopped writing when it didn’t work.

That best summarizes why I write as many words as I do.

500 words daily is a good challenge. You have to summarize your thoughts or tell a compelling short story throughout that meager word count. This fluff-less process has taught me not to worship each word. Publish and move on. You cannot dwell on perfection if you must get 500 words published, and, no, you can’t write 1,000 words today to give yourself a day off tomorrow. Now that I write rough drafts anywhere and edit in more detail, I also have to make sure not to under-write and over-edit.

All this is fine advice for writers. NaNoWriMo probably offers similar.

To expand this out, do what you love with as much of your free time as you can invest. Quit wasting your time on things that won’t enable you to be happy just because it’s popular or it’s easy.

Do the impossible daily.

Endtable:
Quotes: None.
Sources: My writing experience.
Inspirations: Quickly approaching the completion of this list of how many words I’ve written each day, then jamming on some ideas of the writing process I’ve learned recently. Apparently, there’s a popular daily 3-page technique from The Artist’s Way, which I only just heard about yesterday, so my process isn’t unique, and really comes down to this: do what you love daily because there is no pretending the time you spent doing it.
Related: None
Picture: My process of recording my daily word counts.
Written On: July 10th [30 minutes]
Last Edited: July 10th
My big goal is writing. My most important goal is writing "The Story." All other goals should work toward that central goal. My proudest moment is the most recent time I overcame some fear, which should have been today. I'm a better zombie than I was yesterday. I'm not better than you and you're not better than me. Let's strive to be better every day.