What I’ve learned from a year of writing daily posts

My first daily post on this site was one year ago, October 15th, 2017, with the post

“Life is Wild and Precious, Be Present“

One year later, this first daily post remains a favourite for me, as does the wonderful poem by Mary Oliver. Today, though, the whole post has special meaning for me on this anniversary of writing.

What particular resonance does it have for me on this day? What else can I reflect on today that I have learned from a year of writing daily posts?

Oh, and it never felt like I had to bleed à la Hemingway!

From my post one year ago today, these words, in particular, resonate for me today:

“As to purpose, in June 2017 I moved to a new city (London) in effectively a new country to me, having lived overseas for over 27 years until this move. I chose to take this leap with care and consideration and at the same time with instinct and intention, to look to more fully realise my potential to serve this world.

Now, as I write this I am several months into this adventure and already find there is a voice in me that looks to play safe, and also looks to keep busy, as I know how to have a comfortable life through being busy and playing safe.

However, what is it I plan to do with my one wild and precious life? I have no plan, yet I have an intention to hold every moment as Wild and Precious so I will say no to the safe, I will not fill my diary indiscriminately.”

I have stayed this course over the past year and have been rewarded richly in life experiences, many of which I’ve written about in those daily posts.

At the current time, I am very much focussed on presence and, as Alan Moore puts it, “why beauty is key to everything”. This would have been unforeseeable to me one year ago, such is the gift of committing to such a course and sticking to it with daily commitment.

So, at one level, I’ve learned a lot about myself in this year of writing, in often unexpected ways.

Are they all about writing or come from the act of writing? No, yet so much joins up.

To that point, recently the wonderful Maria Popova published a post on tips from writers. I LOVE Maria’s Brainpickings site and newsletters and happily pay to subscribe and support her work. She is an amazing curator of knowledge, a connector of dots between thoughts and thinkers like few others. Often when I am sitting at my laptop connecting dots as I write, I think of her mastery of that art!

The post focussed on tips from various writers, with her usual multiple links out to other sources (curation indeed!), and begins with tips on writing from Jeanette Winterson.

As you read them, much as I have noted my learnings from the last year are not all aruond what daily writing has taught me, also her tips on writing can be applied to so many other areas of life beyond writing:

1. Turn up for work. Discipline allows creative freedom. No discipline equals no freedom.
2. Never stop when you are stuck. You may not be able to solve the problem, but turn aside and write something else. Do not stop altogether.
3. Love what you do.
4. Be honest with yourself. If you are no good, accept it. If the work you are ­doing is no good, accept it.
5. Don’t hold on to poor work. If it was bad when it went in the drawer it will be just as bad when it comes out.
6. Take no notice of anyone you don’t respect.
7. Take no notice of anyone with a ­gender agenda. A lot of men still think that women lack imagination of the fiery kind.
8. Be ambitious for the work and not for the reward.
9. Trust your creativity.
10. Enjoy this work!

A year ago I was someone who decided to publish a post daily. To begin with, I had the mantra of “it takes 30 days to create a habit”, then recognised it takes 30 days to simply begin a habit, it takes longer to fully form it. Quite a number of times I “faced the blank page” knowing I had to write something for the next day. Once I even made that post about not knowing what to write! As time went by though, and I approached 100 days in a row, people started to ask me “how do you think of something to write about every day”, and my answer soon became: “I’m a writer. Writers write”.

I’m a writer. I write. Above all, that is one thing I have learned from writing daily posts. Writing is part of who I am, it is something I do that is important to me and I do write.

I love Jeanette Winterson’s tips and also recognise how many of them do apply more broadly to life and work. Turn up. Show up. Love what you do. Enjoy the work. All these and more.

Oh, and one specific tip from me. Daily writing does not have to mean writing daily. Generally, I do write daily, but sometimes, in order to meet my commitment to post daily, I write a batch of posts to “bank” for future posting. That means that when I choose to change pace, some days I don’t write but rely on that “bank” of posts and schedule them days ahead. Sometimes I do this for when I travel somewhere out of the way, sometimes to simply choose to spend time with people, experiences and not write part of each day.

I’ve also learned about procrastination. Sometimes I have been quite the procrastinator, delaying actions and decisions small and sometimes very large. Committing to posting daily does mean that, again and again, I simply have to sit down and write something on any particular day. I sit down, I get into the mindset, I start to write, it then flows. It wasn’t always that simple at the beginning and I still have my moments, and yet I write. Writing has taught me to procrastinate less in many areas.

So, those are a few things I’ve learned from a year of daily writing. I wonder what I might write this time next year?