Welcome to Day 7 of a 31 day challenge to write 500 words or more. For more on that click here: goinswriter.com
I am a big doofus. I can prove it.
I started this 31 day challenged with the stated understanding that if I were to fail I would be a big doofus. Here was the heart of the challenge.
Write 500 words . . . every day . . . for 31 days.
I started it here My 500 Words: Day 1 and layed down the gauntlet. I called myself out. I made myself accountable. This is what I said (and I quote):
“So here goes. I’m going to write for the next 31 days.
There I said it. Out loud. Well . . . I wrote it quietly but I would say it out loud if my family wasn’t sleeping. It is internet official and in the true spirit of blogging I have (in my mind) made my declaration known to the world (while only three people may actually read this).
Point is . . . I am a big doofus if I fail.”
Let the record show that I did, in fact, NOT fail . . . until day 7. I almost made it a week.
And that was 853 days ago.
Eight hundred
And fifty three
Days.
Somewhere in the back of my brainstem this has haunted me. It hasn’t been lurking around every corner and waking me up at night since honestly it doesn’t even rank in my top 50 failures of the past three years but still . . . I said I would do it . . . and I didn’t.
I hate being a doofus.
Here’s another challenge to the whole thing. I noticed when I started doing the 500 Words that each day I would lose blog subscribers. It baffled me for about two minutes before it made total sense. Most of the people who signed up for my posts did so with a specific purpose. They were expats or repats who resonated with something I had said. I would dare say that 0% of my subscribers signed up because they just weren’t getting enough email in their inbox.
And then I started showing up every day.
The whole experiment was a flop and just proved that I am an undisciplined writer wannabe who is destined to drive people away if he starts writing consistently.
WOW! How’s that for self pity?!! At least I’m good at that.
Cue the sun breaking over the horizon on a new day.
I’ve been listening to Jeff Goins (the offerer of the 500 Words challenge) podcast recently and I gave him another shot to reset my thinker. My point was not his point at all. In fact my point was the opposite of his point.
His point was to help me develop a discipline of writing BECAUSE I AM A WRITER who ironically doesn’t write very much . . . Jeff says I’m not alone.
My point was to prove that I already am disciplined. I clearly am not.
His point was to write for the sake of writing. Just write. Don’t make it epic. Don’t spend all day crafting the perfect sentence. Don’t get hung up on the details. Don’t even care what people think about it.
My point was to build an audience. Surely if I write more then more people will want to read it. They clearly did not.
SO — Here I am again. Day 7 of my 500 days. Technically day 860 if your a detail person.
I am not.
My goals have been reformatted
- I’m going to write because I love to write.
- I’m going to finish this 31 days if it takes me 31 years.
- I will post every day right here.
- When I miss a day so freakin’ what.
- This won’t be perfect and I won’t insist that it be.
- I will notify no one when I post the 500 Days Posts
- No email notices, no social media, just writing for the sake of writing. (note if you get an email about this you shouldn’t have — let me know and I’ll see if I can fix it).
- I will add no pictures unless I go back and do it later.
I’m already feeling less doofusy — And those are my 500 words.
