2018 Goals Part 1: Making Writing a Daily Habit

In order to reach my goals this year, and hold myself accountable in the process, I think I need to go down that list from my previous post and analyze what I believe has kept me from reaching them up to this point. Then, I need to come up with my plans for making these changes, especially in a long-term, permanent and meaningful way. So I would like to do that, and you are welcome to read my next few blog posts if you are at all interested. Otherwise, you can skip them and re-join me whenever I post about all the fun stuff. (Planning for my trip to Toronto in early May!) 😊

The goal I listed first this year was to make writing a daily habit. This particular avoidance is a tough one for me to understand about myself. If I look all the way back to when I was a kid, I always told people I wanted to be a writer. Even when there were other things I considered doing with my life, I always came back to writing as something I would want as a lifelong career. I follow hundreds of authors on Twitter, and retweet all the writing quotes that “speak” to me whenever I see them. So why have I avoided actually writing for so long, and why have I never really tried to make something of myself in this manner?

I don’t know. I find it difficult to comprehend, let alone explain to someone else. I know that I love money, so maybe on some level I never believed I could make a living as a writer. That has usually been my first question before I consider doing something with my free time, “Can I turn this into a money-making opportunity in some way?” That doesn’t explain the fact, though, that I have often end up doing nothing with my free time, particularly in the past few years, except for marathon watching a TV show or shopping.

As a teenager, I wrote a lot, but I never really wrote fiction (which is what I would like to do). I wrote tons of angsty poetry and a lot of heavy metal song lyrics, but I only recall having written maybe one or two short stories in all my time. I did have strong opinions back then; however, so I was more inclined to practice writing non-fiction. I did do a lot of that, but I never really directed it to any particular avenue. It was more about writing things out so I could understand my opinion on a certain matter, and my opinions were very black and white. I also kept a journal, of course, and wrote in it daily.

I think as life went on, I allowed my perspective on things to become one-sided and jaded (as many of us do), so I began avoiding my feelings, not wanting to deal with any pain or frustration I felt with life and its people. Opinions also became less absolute as I realized the shades of gray that are more likely to exist in any given situation. I think the more jaded I allowed myself to become, the less I ended up writing things down until I eventually stopped all together. I had started believing my opinions weren’t worth anything. If everything is so subjective, then what do I have to offer the world?

If I add to all this the fact that my self-esteem has basically been at 0, I can begin to see why I would have avoided writing. Even if I don’t show my work to anyone else, there is still the risk of coming up short and disappointing myself. I don’t have the right grammar. I don’t know enough about this subject. I haven’t read enough of the literature that has stood the test of time. This plot has been used a thousand times, so how can I offer anything new to it? And so on.

Another thought that has dominated my mind over the years: school was really easy for me, so if something doesn’t come easily to me, it must mean I’m no good at it and should just let it go. I’ve read all the writing advice that you need to sit down every day, even if the muse isn’t coming to you, but I think on a deeper level I just never believed that. I’m a perfectionist. I think seeing the finished, polished – and published products from all my writer friends killed it for me. You don’t get to see their shitty first drafts. Even if some of their first drafts aren’t shitty, you don’t see the hours, days, months, and years they have put into their craft to get to where they are. And honestly, some people are just born with supreme talent and there’s nothing you can do about that. That’s true about anything, though, and sometimes it’s difficult and overwhelming to realize you have to start from scratch, but is that really a reason to keep putting it off?

I often come across the following perspective, “If you really want something, you’ll do it!” or something to that effect. In the past, this way of thinking has pissed me off! I think it was upsetting to me because there’s obviously truth to it. We will always have obstacles in life, but we have to decide what’s important enough to us to make it a permanent part of our life. It won’t always be easy. Our family may have to come first. Or our health and well-being, our friends, our day job. If something is important, though, we must find a way to fit it into our time. If that means we have time to write one paragraph before we have to hang it up for the day, then so be it. It’s going to take longer, but it’s still going to get done.

Most of my own obstacles have had to do with getting out of my own way! I have truly been my own worst enemy. Sometimes people just need a big kick in the pants, but per usual, I have been more of a late bloomer and need to learn these things on my own. “Better late, than never” has definitely been the prevailing theme in my life.

So to tackle this goal, I have been thinking a lot about what I need to do to make writing a daily habit. First, there’s the obvious: just do it. Write every day. It sounds so basic when I say it like that, but this is often the most difficult step for people who are trying to get back into anything new. Habits take time to form, and pushing through the negative feelings or thoughts to break the old habits and create the new ones is hard. It takes consistency. You have to start somewhere.

Second, I wanted to think of a way I could write every day that didn’t come down to achieving a specific goal. I would ultimately like to make specific writing goals, but for now, I just need to make writing something I enjoy again, not just a means to an end. I want to relearn to enjoy the process, and to enjoy working through my thoughts and feelings. Queue my old blog. I realized I still had it, although I think I only posted one time last year. I have tinkered with it from time to time, but have usually ended up deleting my old posts each time. (That perfectionism thing). Plus I never really settled on anything to write about full-time. I think that came down to me always worrying about how I could monetize my blog, and I’m done with that. Right now, I’m more concerned with what I need to do to grow, and if someone else wants to follow along, that’s just going to be a bonus! If there had to be a theme, I think self-re-discovery could work. I also have a lot of passions in life, including travel and food, so there’s plenty to run with.

Third, I want to brush up on my grammar and structure. I find that I use a lot of passive sentences, so I would like to work on resolving that. There’s nothing wrong with breaking the rules, but you should at least know the rules you’re breaking first. Otherwise, you’re just doing it wrong. I also think I use unnecessary words, which I’m hoping to track. There may be times when I like certain word usage, but there may also be times when something sounds crisper without it. The funny thing is English was my best subject in school. I think my writing just got lazy over the years. When I’m blogging or responding to someone on the Internet, I’m attempting to write like one would speak, which isn’t going to work professionally. I would also like to expand my vocabulary, so I plan to look up every unfamiliar word I come across and read its definition and usage.

Otherwise, I’ve written down many ideas in the past so I will continue to do that. I’m hoping that once I get back into the habit I will feel more comfortable in my attempts to write fiction, possibly exploring and expanding on some of my ideas and making them something more significant.