I’ve been studying a lot in the last couple of months but I’ve also been thinking a lot about writing. When I need to take a little break and give my brain a rest I often find myself reading other blogs (what other blogs?). I think about writing posts myself but just don’t do it. I think sometimes I’m struggling with the idea of what I should write. I imagine the people that I think read this blog and I try to anticipate what they would like to read. I don’t like the idea of filling up my space here with nonsense just to have more posts but I also think that writing just for the sake of writing has some merit to it. I took a class this last semester that dealt mainly with reading novels and writing. Of course, it was the most enjoyable class for me; that kind of thing is exactly what I enjoy doing with my time. I also noticed that as the deadline for each piece of writing was approaching, motivation swam into my fingers and words came typing out. The deadline pushed me to actually write something instead of just letting the ideas roll around in my head, eventually to be forgotten and then lost forever. Once I started to let the words out I saw that it wasn’t as hard as I was making it out to be. I realized that the hardest part of writing is just actually doing it. Writing itself isn’t hard at all; just take your thoughts and let them out. What is hard sometimes is sharing it with others. When I write things, especially stories or personal opinions, I often worry that some people won’t like it or will be offended. I think I should stop that. I have good intentions and I never intentionally offend anyone, but I am also a person with my own opinions about things and this is really my space to share them. Everyone is free to read or to not read. I want to work on freeing myself to write what I like, worrying less, and just expressing whatever it is I feel like expressing. I don’t have to fit some mold, this blog is about my life and my life is certainly unique from that of any other. My experiences are true, some are positive and some are negative, but they are mine.
I also wanted to share a little bit of information about something I’m considering doing in the future. A guest speaker came to give a presentation in the writing class I mentioned above. His name is Chris Baty and he’s the founder of NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is a contest that challenges its participants to write a novel in the month of November. The only requirement is that you write a 50,000-word (minimum) novel between the 1st and 30th of November. The novel can be utter garbage, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you write it. The word count demand eliminates the time that would be used to worry about what to write; instead you must just write, write, write, write. If you reach the 50,000 word mark then you win the contest. You get a worthless piece of paper, and more importantly, a sense of satisfaction for having actually written a novel.
