Doing The Same Thing Over Again

The definition of insanity is said to be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting results. Sometimes, with this daily blogging task, I have wondered if there is actually any point. I guess it's natural I'd feel like that - it's day 10 and I'm almost half way there already, but also not near enough the finish line to see the tape. It's at this point that I often lose a bit of heart in new endeavours and projects. But I'm really, really bloody stubborn and hate giving up, even if things look a bit rocky (this is not always a good thing!)

It's not that I don't care about the project, despite it's seeming lack of end goal, it's that I'm tired. I know I say that a lot but it's true, I'm pretty much always tired by the time I sit down to write - it's rare that this happens before 10pm. By which time I've usually been up for 16hours.

I know it's good writing practice to write every day, but I feel like I'm churning out quantity over quality here and kind of dialling it in on occasion (here and here). Ideally you're supposed to do your writing practice in the morning - 3 pages (size unspecified, hello there tiny notepad...), whilst you're fresh and awake - that's never going to happen. 

Even if I sort the timing issue, I'm feeling that by writing every day, I'm a bit hit and miss with topics and quality of writing. I'm boring myself sometimes and I'm not even sure if I'm writing for an audience, writing to keep up with my month-long goal, or just exploring ideas - or a mix of all three. 

It's hard because I don't have as long as I want to let ideas percolate (several weeks) and I'm having to just (wo)man up and write the damn posts. Not every topic flows from my fingers and I like to use precise wording and sentence structure convey my point from my conscious to my readers' conscious. That's hard to do without time to think and process - and time to choose appropriate wording. 

But what I learned from doing Nanowrimo in 2010 was to just write and silence your inner critic. To keep writing and writing and writing - and even though 90% of it was crap, once you warmed up you'd get some decent sections of text to work with (that's if I ever get around to finishing and editing my 50k start of a novel). 

I need to buck up my ideas and stop trying to stick to my arbitrary rules of writing, to let myself be more creative and write more freely. Not for an audience but for me. I think the part of your brain governing creativity is like a muscle - the more you use it, the more neural pathways you grow and the stronger it gets - the more creative you become and I guess create something worthwhile.

There's another 18 days of this month long blogging assignment left. In that I think I need to remind myself of this post on occasion and give myself permission to censor myself less. I know this is really going to be tedious to many people - someone blogging about trying to write more. 

But if my end goal is really to get to grips with the two lots of 6k words of books I've started and make a go of them, I need to think like a sports player. I need to train so that get better and stronger and achieve my dream. That might even mean posting some fiction on here. Who knows.

Thank you and goodnight,

Stupidgirl has left the building