A writing habit

For many years growing up I had a vague desire to be a "writer," whatever that means. Off and on I tried my hand at it, writing stories or essays outside the regular school regimen but without much consistency or, frankly, satisfaction. The years came and went, and the act of writing never really became the source of joy I imagined it might.

Toward the end of my undergraduate years I did a lot of writing (by my old standards, that is), almost exclusively academic papers. I didn't really enjoy writing most of them, but the act of doing so had the beneficial side-effect of giving me practice and inspiration. About the same time I started this blog, and a few months later (16 months from today) began an experiment which made me feel like joy as a "writer" at last.

The "experiment" sought to test a new approach for encouraging consistent writing practice. It involved writing at least a full page of text in a notebook everyday. The text could be about anything, so long as it was hand-written and a page in length. The idea was to make writing a regular part of living, a habit you might say. To help things along, I decided against any standards for that writing, other than the manner in which it was written and the length; that way I wouldn't feel bad if it seemed I was writing drivel. Beside, drivel is okay: if you don't write anything, you don't even produce drivel.

Anyhow, I frequently wrote about the weather, the events of the day, or thoughts which came to mind. Later I relaxed the one-page standard to allow for "bad" writing days, as well as "good" ones when I felt like writing 2 pages or more. These days I sometimes write in the book more than once each day, which helps me capture thoughts in the moment rather than trying to recall everything in the "twilight mind" I often experience before bed. The idea came to me from reading the diary entries which make up large portions of Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

As you can see to make the habit stick for me the act had to be consistent, even if not consistently good. Furthermore it also needed a high tolerance for "drivel," which I'm finding is a bit like sand through which one can search to find the little golden nuggets which come in our more eloquent moments (referring to his own experience with such nuggets, Isaac Asimov described it as "writing over my head").

Finally, establishing and keeping my little writing habit required flexibility and rigidity. The terms are antonyms (opposites) of course, but I find in practice they both have their place; sometimes we must bend, and sometimes we mustn't. Judging how and when is not easy or prescribable, but sometimes experience has a power of suggestion all its own. Consider, from the above example the one-page standard length proved personally useful in establishing the writing habit, but over time forced me to string things out too much on bad days and constrain myself unnecessarily on good ones. Why do either if a simple relaxing of the one-page rule could satisfy the issues surrounding both? In this respect, keeping the habit demonstrated the virtue of rigidity; relaxing the required length, the virtue of flexibility.

The writing habit has become one of my favorites, and rarely does a day pass when it doesn't bring me at least a little joy. The resulting collection of words is not professional or perfect, but it is my own, and for me that's what counts. I suspect everyone has that unique blend of experience, practice, and knowledge which collectively make up one's "voice," or the way one organizes thoughts and presents it to others. But too frequently perhaps we are discouraged by who-knows-what from giving sufficient exercise to make it fit and a healthy extension of ourselves. I find joy in this simple habit, and perhaps you will too.

Happy Tuesday, friends :)