My goal for the month of June 2018 will be to write 1000 words of fiction everyday single day. This does not include steemit posts or e-mail or any other type of writing. I will share my progress and thoughts on steemit for the community's benefit. In this post, however, I want to explain what motivates me to do this. Hopefully, it will inspire you to do the same!
To Develop Self-Discipline
Writing when we are inspired is easy. Writing when we are not and we'd rather just browse the internet mindlessly...that requires self-discipline! How to get more self-discipline? By forcing ourselves to do things that require self-discipline of course!
Self-discipline is a quality that we should all strive to develop no matter in which field or activity we are occupied in. If we develop discipline through exercise, programming, writing, or any other activity, the benefits will spill over to every other facets of our lives.
Self-discipline is the difference between success and failure. Haven't you noticed how it's not the smartest one that achieves success, but rather the one who works hard everyday and is able to trade short term benefits for long term benefits?
This brings me to one constraint I am imposing on myself for this 1 month challenge. The 1000 words is not cumulative. By this I mean that I cannot write 2000 words on a day in which I feel really good and use 1000 of those words to compensate for a day where I just want to lay down and do nothing. No. I strongly believe that for success in life we must be ready to work hard day in and day out, no matter our fleeting mood.
And what better way to learn how to do this than by writing 1000 words a day?
To Bring my Writing Art to the Next Level
Writing fiction is a craft and like any other craft it necessitates practice to develop skill in it. Writing 1000 words a day is a form of practice in the same manner that sitting down at a piano for 1 hour is practice to develop the skill of playing the piano.
I don't believe in the Muse. I think that's bullshit and a dangerous belief. Of course, there are days where we are in the mood to write and others that we are not, but the real measure of quality writing lies not in words we are currently writing but the wagons of words we have written yesterday.
There's a rule that as far as I know has originated from none other than Ray Bradbury himself that we must write 1,000,000 bad words before we can write good, quality words. Writing 1000 words a day is a great habit to get those 1,000,000 words out of the door. If I wrote 1000 words a day consistently for 3 years I would have 1,095,000 words written. At that point, I'd be able to consider myself a professional writer who has paid his dues for his level of skill.
In other words, my goal by writing 1000 words a day in the month of June is to develop a habit that will help me develop skill in the long term.
To Focus the Subconscious
Alright, this one will require a bit of explaining. Have you ever had a difficult problem to solve in your life, and then found the answer after a good night of sleep? You might have heard about mathematicians or programmers find their Eureka moments during their sleep and jump out of bed with excitement at having found the answers they have so much sought after.
What is going on in these cases? It is that when our brain realises that certain problems occupy our mind more than others, it keeps working on those problems even when we are not consciously thinking about them. So, as a writer of fiction, in focusing my mind daily on the task of storytelling, I believe my brain will continue to work on ideas for stories, characters and interesting storytelling devices 24h/24h, even when I sleep. This is a powerful force that I wish to harness to increase the quality of my fiction.
Conclusion
Writing 1000 words a day will be a journey full of challenges, wonder and above all benefits. It will help me grow and improve as an individual. I hope you will enjoy following me in this endeavor whether or not you also decide to do the same.