As you’ve noticed, I still write every day right here on this Live with Flair blog. And if you’ve noticed, as I’m sure you have, it’s not always earth-shattering, revolutionary, or even worth mentioning all the time. Sometimes, I have nothing good to say at all. So why sit down and write? If it’s not going to be great, why do it?
Well, because it’s so good for us to write every day, even a little bit. It’s good to practice developing a written voice and experimenting with various sentence patterns. It’s good to allow yourself the freedom to not be amazing, but to just write. It keeps the juices flowing. It sets up a pattern of writing–of showing up to the desk, of putting something down–so it’s not so difficult when you’re writing something more high stakes. And, perhaps most importantly, it helps rid you of the fear of an audience. Just write! Write! Some of it will stick. Some of it will be mentioned and tweeted and emailed around the world. Some of it won’t even be read at all because your first line was so boring. You might have 5 readers today. You might have 5 million (did I mention my viral tweet on Christmas morning)? The important thing is the practice of writing. Soon, it won’t feel so forced all the time.
I go back and forth on this, though. I believe you do need to step away from writing projects in order to allow your thoughts to form, so I’m not in favor of just writing because you said you would write–especially on certain kinds of creative projects. I do believe how on certain days, you will feel more inspired and more able to write what you want to write. So it’s OK to wait for those days. I wait for those days.
But you have all the other days. What about the others days? I still like the idea of writing every day the way you breathe every day. It’s just part of your DNA now. It’s what you do. It’s like eating. It’s like sleeping. You do it every day. And, like breathing, you won’t notice the work of it all the time. You’ll just show up and do what you do. That’s the benefit of daily writing for me.