Hey my friends,
I’m writing tonight to give you a little update on my 100 Day Project.
I’ve been blogging every day for 80 days.
That is insane to me. 80 days!? The most I’ve ever blogged in a row before is 30 days. So this is quite the feat.
It’s been an interesting 80 days. 80 days of my life where I press that “publish” button.
One of the best parts about doing this 100 Day Project is desensitizing that publish button for me. When I say that, I mean before the project I would wait longer before posting because I didn’t always think I had something “worth” writing about, so I wouldn’t press publish until I had something “mind blowing” to say. But I’ve come to believe that pressing publish is one of the most important practices to have as a blogger.
The more you press publish…the less fearful you become of pressing publish.
Pressing publish can feel like a big deal when you haven’t written in awhile. It feels daunting. But once you get in the habit, you realize that the publish button isn’t there for you to always put the most eloquent, brilliant writing into the world. It’s there for you to put your writing out into the world. The more you do it, the more content you’ve created, the more tidbits you’ve shared, the more creativity you’ve expressed even on the days you don’t feel even a pinch of creative energy. The more you do it, the more you’ve flexed that publish muscle.
I’m starting to understand when writers say they wrote a lot that got thrown out, on the way to writing a novel. That’s because not EVERYTHING YOU WRITE is going to flow out of you like a sparkling stream of delight. Some of it’s going to feel forced and not make a lot of sense and that’s the stuff that won’t go into your book. But the practice of writing is important anyway.
Because the more you do it, the more likely a piece of gold is going to come out onto the page. Writing more frequently is just upping your likelihood of a gold rush, really.
By the way, I highly recommend — if you’re a writer or want to learn more about writing — that you listen to The Beautiful Writers Podcast. I’ve been really enjoying it and absorbing little tidbits from all the beautiful writers I look up to. I simply can’t devour enough advice from seasoned writers. It’s been a great thing to listen to while driving (yes I drive now), or while grilling (I also grill now…we ain’t in NYC anymore, toto).
So many people from my Invisible Roundtable of Counselors are on that podcast. Liz Gilbert, Brené Brown, Seth Godin, Robert McKee, Steven Pressfield, just to name a few.
Imagine having dinner with all of them at once? I’d definitely faint. And I’d definitely burn the onions.
Anyway.
Yes – the repetition of the writing and publishing is absolutely the most useful part of this project for me. It’s not easy to write something that’s remotely useful for public consumption every day. But I’ve found that I can. I can write something.
“I think we make a mistake if we call ourselves a writer and then talk about how we need to find the right emotional moment to do our writing.
What we need to do is write, and then write some more, and if we’re any good at it, we will edit later by throwing out the stuff that doesn’t sing.
If this was easy, everyone would do it, and they would do it well. The fact that it’s hard makes it worth doing.”
I am definitely NOT in the mood to produce something or share something every day. Nor do I believe that posting a blog every day is necessarily the best use of my creative energy. I don’t have endless creative energy in a day, and my time could be spent creating revenue-generating projects, writing a book, posting more content on instagram, working on emails, marketing…etc. There’s lots of other writing I could be doing other than the blog, and on some days it feels a little tedious.
But I know the habit is strengthening a muscle I haven’t put time towards strengthening in quite awhile. And it’s important. And making it my 1 priority throughout the day is getting me back to the original feeling I had when I started my blog. Self expression. Looking for small things throughout the day that spark some sort of insight. Sharing things worth sharing. Sharing things that could potentially help someone. Sharing things that would have potentially helped me if I Googled upon them.
I only have 20 days left of this project, and that seems so small to me now. 20 days of writing left!
After this project is complete, one thing is for sure – I’m not going to stop writing every day. But I might start putting my writing into other places. I’ve had a couple of ideas brewing.
The cool thing is – after this is over, I’ll have 100 pieces of content that I can spend more time sharing, or expanding upon.
And that’s pretty cool.
Have you ever done a 100 Day Project? What did you learn from it?
Hugs and slugs,
“Write freely and often.
Share it and share it and share it for free.
Until one day – you discover that strangers are asking you for that thing you wrote.”
ALSO …. one more gold nugget from Seth:
“If you know that another blog post is due tomorrow, another post will present itself.
It just will.”
Rumana says
I am very inspired after spending some time in your blog. Thank you for the beautiful articles
Jenny Sansouci says
Thank you!