I’m a writer. One of the things that writers do — the most important, really — is write. To that end, I had mulled the idea of getting into a daily writing habit for several years. I had several false starts, if you can call writing every day for three months a false start, but I finally found a tool that could motivate me to get my butt into the chair and spit words onto the page. The tool? The Magic Spreadsheet, created by Tony Pisculli and popularized by Mur Lafferty. It’s worked well for me: since I started using it, I’ve written the first draft of a novel, twenty-one short stories, a thirty page outline for a trilogy, and countless opinion pieces (which I’ve mostly kept to myself, but I’ve put some up here).
While slapping down the words required to continue my streak on the spreadsheet comes easily, I find that I want to concentrate on getting a second draft of the novel done. The spreadsheet accommodates editing phases, but I found that it just wasn’t working for me so I’ve decided to take a break.
Today is my five-hundredth day of writing, and I think that’s a good milestone at which to pause and take stock. I’m not quitting, just taking a breather. I admit it’s a funny time to do it, but I think that the impeding start of NaNoWriMo helped push me into this decision; I didn’t want to start something new with my other novel still bouncing around in my head.
It’s been fun, it’s been trying. I’ve met great people through the spreadsheet, and I look forward to being back on it, just not before December, maybe.
(In a similar vein, I’m taking a social media holiday too so you won’t see my witticisms on Twitter/Facebook for the month either. I still have notifications on, so if you want to get in touch with me, I’ll be … surprised?)