A Page a Day

I’m a writer. That much is clear from the fact that I’m writing this blog.

But as any writer will tell you, one of the hardest things to do each day is sit down and write. There’s a resistance to creativity within each of us (writers, and artists in general) that we have to learn to overcome if we actually want to master our craft.

One of the simplest ways I’ve been working to overcome that in my own life has been through daily journaling. I’ve written previously on this blog about habit formation, and I decided to apply those ideas to the discipline of writing a daily journal entry. I only had one rule. I had to write at least a page a day. That would get me started, force me to think outside the box a little bit when necessary, and then finish off the practice when the end of the page neared.

Today is Day Thirty of doing this, and on every day but one, I wrote at least one page in my journal (the one day of exception, it was half a page because it was late at night and I’d almost forgotten).

If you looked in my journal (please don’t), you’d see my entries have been a mixed bag. Sometimes they’re just a diary of events. Sometimes they’re deep-ish thoughts that I want to develop. Sometimes they’re angsty prayers. Sometimes I’ve misspelled or mis-started a word several times and spent half a line crossing out the mistake and spelling the word correctly.

(Posh writers with top hats, British accents, and fountain pens will say, “Don’t spell-check yourself when you’re journaling, it impedes the proh-cess.” —to which I say, get off my back, I make the rules in my journal!)

Ahem. Where was I?

Thirty days of journaling. The only point of this exercise was to prove to myself it’s possible, and to begin the work of building a daily writing habit. I intend to keep journaling daily. If I miss a day, it’ll either be no biggie, or I’ll make up the missed day later and pretend I wrote that entry on the day I missed (I actually did that a few times over these last thirty days).

I’ve heard people talk about the benefits of journaling daily for months or years. I’m not there yet, but I hope to get there and reap whatever benefits appear along the way. Maybe it’ll also help me get through my overthinking tendencies too. I’ve joked for years that there should be an Overthinkers Anonymous support group. My journal has been sort of serving in that capacity now for thirty days. We’ll see what happens in the future.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I hope, if nothing else, they encourage you to pursue some of your favorite activities, perhaps ones you’ve been neglecting. In this tough world, we need these creative and edifying activities. They build us up. Remember to be kind to yourself in the process, but also remember that if you don’t challenge yourself, you don’t grow.