Telling Stories.

Deciding to do this 500 word daily writing challenge was kind of a big deal for me. I'm very "all or nothing", or at least I used to be, and the fear of trying to do something but not being able to do it "all the way" or to the very best of my ability can be pretty daunting. The last thing I wanted to do was to sign up for something, tell everyone I was going to do it, and then mess up. 

I know, I know, messing up is not that big a deal. If I missed a day, who cares, right? 

On one hand, yes, who really cares? It wouldn't be that big of a deal. I'm not under any sort of contract, it's not even like a ton of people are reading these or expecting one from me every day, but I simply detest the idea of not finishing something like this. 

One the other hand, what is the point of doing a challenge if I'm not going to take it seriously? Why  bother if I'm just okay with missing a day because it was "too hard" or "too inconvenient" to get it done? 

That's the achiever in me talking. But, the achiever is part of who I am. It's what has enabled me to do all the things I've done. I don't think many of them are worth noting individually, but overall I get a lot done because I love having gotten stuff done. And I owe it to the "random" innate personality and drive that the good Lord has given me. 

When I decided to do this challenge, I also registered on Jeff Goins' website to receive the daily emails about this challenge. They often give a little prompt to get you going or some advice on how to follow through. Today's prompt was to write a story about someone. I'm trying to figure out why that is so hard for me! 

I think it's Annie Dillard who says that you should just write the truth about people. If they weren't nice to you, then that's their problem (paraphrasing here). Don't worry about what they think! 

I don't really have stories that would be very mean to tell, maybe just a few. Probably mostly about boys in Jr High or Highschool. The thing is, I'm not sure if I can even tell stories well. I think that I'm pretty good at explaining things, coming up with good analogies, and teaching concepts, but when it comes to telling stories, I feel like I have no idea where I stand. 

Maybe part of that is because I haven't tried to write any "real" stories yet, and how can I know until I do? 

I do dream of writing some great fiction someday and I have lots of big ideas tucked away in notebooks. Maybe the reason I don't start is fear, but it's also mixed with lack of time. Well, maybe not just having the hours in the day, but it just isn't a big priority right now. I don't have a story burning in my soul that overrides homeschooling, housekeeping, and all my other endeavors. 

Maybe someday soon you'll get a short story on here. Can I even write one about 500 words long? Guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Every Day.

I knew that writing 500 words every day for 31 days would be a challenge, but I didn't expect it to feel so hard on Day 3. Yikes.

I keep thinking I need a list of topics to help me know what to write, but that's not true. I mean yes, I'm sure that's helpful, but it's not the reason I've been putting this off today. 2pm is not super late, but I was wanting to get this done before lunch and I ended up doing a bunch of other things before this that didn't really need to be done. Don't ask me how long I've been on Pinterest or Instagram.

The truth is it's hard to do things every day.

Whatever it is you are working towards, it's hard to do a little (or sometimes a lot) of it every single day. In my false reality, I think it would be easier to become a better writer, a better athlete, a better artist, a better ______________ , if only I could spend giant chunks of time on it. I think that if I wasn't homeschooling and had a few more hours to myself every day, THEN I would surely accomplish all the things on my list.

So not true.

I've had to fight off a lot of guilt this Christmas break. I've spent a lot of time on things just for me. Which isn't wrong to do in and of itself. And I'm not saying I've been wrong in it either (thus, fighting off guilt). But I am realizing that I am living my life a bit backwards from a lot of others and that I can't look at what they are doing to dictate what I ought to be doing. For people whose children are in a typical school setting, Christmas break is some of their only time to chill out, spend time with their kids, and go on adventures together. For me, it's some of the only time I get (besides parts of summer) to really do whatever I want. And I know this time is rapidly coming to a close.

But back to the every day idea. Doing things in large chunks of time is great. We often can get huge tasks finished and large jobs tackled in times where we can really dedicate ourselves for a longer period of time than we usually have. But from everything I've read and observed, the great artists became great because they work toward becoming better in their craft every day.

Sure, they take days off and go on vacations, but they don't wait to move until they have the large chunk of time to really make a dent. They use the ends of their hours, days, weeks, and months and fill it in with small progress. And that is hard to do. It's easy for a week, or a few days, but to march ahead knowing that to gain skill in your desired field will require lots of continual little baby steps, where progress will be slow and you might have little to show for it for an extremely long time... it's a little daunting.

I think that's why I am a bit crazy today, a bit paralyzed in my efforts. And I know it makes zero logical sense. Any progress is still progress. So, I'm still here. I'm writing. And I'm going to do my best to keep trusting that doing a little something every day, no matter how small, is still something worthwhile.