We’re nine days into 2023 and I’m surprised. I’m surprised that my kind-of-resolution, not really a resolution of trying to write something every day has worked so far. I enjoy writing and have, for many years, wanted to try and do more. Even just for the simple practice of it. It would have been easy to commit just to writing in a notebook, but I wanted to add a little layer of external accountability to it so I said that it had to be a daily piece of writing which I published on this blog. I know from past experience that making an external commitment is normally a better way to get me to do something. I’m fairly certain that most of these posts will reach few if any readers, but that is fine. The resolution is for me after all.
The idea of establishing a daily writing habit came to me from Oliver Burkeman, who himself was inspired by the morning pages routine of Julia Cameron. You can find out more here: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/morningpages.
Writing allows so much. One of the things I like about how Burkeman explains the benefit of daily writing is that it is a way to both focus and to distract, to plan and to procrastinate. Quite simply, it can give you whatever you need at the time. This isn’t quite the same as writing to publish every day, which is the challenge I’ve set myself, but then again I’m not particularly writing with audience in mind most days.
I am hoping that as I continue through my new (and hopefully long-lasting) daily habit, I can hone my writing, try different styles, cover different topics and get back to enjoying writing like I used to. I have all kinds of fleeting ambitions about where writing might take me, but they’re not my focus at the moment. It is just about the act of writing and, most importantly now, the forming of routine.
Commonplace 