It’s been 9 months since I started writing daily.
Every day, usually in the morning, I’d sit down in front of the computer and let something come up. Usually, in 15 to 60 seconds something would come up — either:
- An idea I’ve discussed the previous day verbally
- Expand on something I’ve read
- Expand on something I’ve written
- I’d come up with something on the spot
And today what came up was that… this was it!
The daily writing exercise has done its job. Or rather, the multitude of jobs:
- It was my “internship” into writing. ~200,000 words equate to almost 4 books written. Especially since the first 100,000 words were written in the first 4 months, I believe I’ve been able to confirm to myself that some books will be published during my lifetime, if I get to live for as much as I’d want to
- It can be done (writing every day). Period, no excuses. You learn something every day, so you can write about something every day.
- A lesson about commitment, discipline and habits. Oh and consistency. Cue here all those words.
- Put me in touch with some people I can deem as friends, which I’m very grateful for.
- Of course, just like with most of the main-level things I do, I poked at my reservoir/well of creativity to see what’s happening there. Yet again it’s reinforced to me that, if I do what I’ve said above — sit down and let things come to the surface — it happens. It’s not me who does it, I just become the vehicle for these things to come into being: whether it’s an article on a random day, a product or a way of helping someone.
- Very importantly, it was also meant to be an archive for our future. Surely not only myself, but others as well will dig through these ~200,000 words to uncover… who knows what. I’ve always been fascinated by the early days of someone I’d study — and most of the time I’d be disappointed to find not much from the early days. On many days I would say that those words that I’m putting together are not for that day or the one that comes after. Rather, it would be for 20 to 50 years from that moment. My rational mind’s main objection is the fact that this track record of the early days is broken… However, with today’s channels of distribution, it might not be that hard to corroborate the “early days” without a daily blog. Besides, I believe the chunk of information that we’ve got so far still does the job!
And here comes the big “however”! The big “however” is that more and more of my time is requested in other areas. Namely:
- The Legit Check By Ch company, which initially started just as a side project, born by Chagency. In my head, there’s still a lot of potential that can be brought to this world through this project. And value for the people.
- Another project I can’t really say a lot, besides one word: influencers.
- Other graphic design tasks, facilitated by Chagency — on this end things have been slowed down, exactly because of #1 and #2. A service-based business has multiple gears — slow, fast, etc. Projects #1 and #2 have only two: neutral and hyper-fast. Nothing in-between. Thus being said, I’m cashing in on this luxury of a service-based business like Chagency, which still has its place in the future, as per the Masterplan
- Other bursts of creativity that just come from… somewhere? Somewhere inside? Bursts that I sometimes wish I wouldn’t have so I can tunnel-vision myself into 1-2 projects — alas, they’re what keep me sane and I can’t negate that. The latest one is the font I’ve announced a couple of days ago I’ll pursue. Another example would be Get Startup Funding, which is a “relic” I love to death — even though, for the time being at least, no further work is allocated there. For the time being.
I will still be a writer, nonetheless. As I’ve said above, I’ll say it again: this daily writing exercise has formed me into a higher-quality-writer — I’ve learned about more things that don’t work and I’ve learned about three or four things (of the infinity of things) that might work.
Getting back to the list of things I’ve paired with the big “however”, projects 1 and 2 are the kind of activities that need… not “a lot of time”. Rather, they need “as much time as humanly possible”.
I’ve kept on writing daily, despite these activities needing as much time as possible, as the pool of creativity was still flowing easily. That was, until today.
It’s currently 11:05pm as I’m writing this. I’ve given this idea pretty much the entire day to see if it was a momentary thing or something that’s genuine.
By “this idea”, I mean this internal inexplicable flow of energy that…
- Allows me to write this right now
- Allowed me to write every day for this period of time
- Requests that this exercise has done its job and that anything done after this point is an attachment to the self-constructed idea/identity of a daily writer.
I started writing daily on the 7th of December. If we don’t consider today’s piece, that means that yesterday’s piece, on the 7th of September, was my last article as part of this exercise.
Funny enough, exactly 9 months!
What will come up next?
More high-quality articles, just like the top-performing ones on Medium which garnered thousands of views, productive discussions and, hopefully, positive impact.
I can tell I’ve got at least 10-20 pieces that need to be stitched together into a high-quality long-form piece. Those 10-20 pieces are chunks from daily articles.
Besides, at least 5 long-form pieces that have not been published as I didn’t get the chance to edit them properly. Some go really deep.
Thank you for reading this. This formative period has finished.
Yours,