1461: Day After Day

Every so often when I sit down to write this blog thing every day, I look at the number before the post title and think “bloody hell, that’s a lot of posts.” Then I think “bloody hell, that’s quite a long time I’ve been doing this.”

Of course, given that my day job involves writing lots of things every day, it’s perhaps arguable whether or not having written a single post on here every day for the last 1,461 days is as impressive as it once was, but I like to think it still shows a certain degree of dedication and commitment on my part. And, given that I’m not the sort of person who spends a lot of time thinking particularly good things about themselves, that’s one thing with concrete evidence that I can specifically point to and say “yes, that’s good; that’s something I can be pleased with.”

I feel doubly pleased when I think back to how this all started. For those who have joined me recently, the basic gist was this: a few UK-based writers got together and decided to write something every day, initially for a year. I joined quite late in January in that first year, and haven’t stopped since. Interestingly, a significant number of the people who started that first year also gave up very quickly — the person I regard as the “founder” simply bowed out with a tweet that said “fuck #oneaday” one day and never picked it up again — but others stuck it out for most or even all of that first year.

Following that, I managed to organise a ragtag group of bloggers into a group who helped motivate each other somewhat, and in the process we raised a bit of money for charity. Again, though, relatively few people made it through the whole year, but I stood firm. Now, to my knowledge, I’m the only one of the original participants from either of those first couple of years to still be blogging on a daily basis and while I may not always have a lot of meaningful things to say, I still sit down and write every day, regardless.

Because it wasn’t necessarily about writing something meaningful or useful. It was just about writing. As with any creative endeavour, regardless of how ambitious it is, the only way to get better and refine your craft is to continue doing it as often as possible. You might just discover a few things about yourself in the process.

For my part, I’ve discovered — well, confirmed, really — that writing is a good outlet for me. If stress and anxiety is starting to build up in my head, as it often does, writing this post each day is a good means of venting some of that steam. I don’t even necessarily have to write specifically about what I’m stressed or anxious about; if you look back to the period on this blog where my marriage was falling apart and I was in a seriously bad place mental health-wise, you’ll notice that a lot of the posts are considerably more creative than they perhaps are now. I don’t think this is coincidental at all; misery appears to beget creativity, which may account for the whole “tortured artist” stereotype.

Note: I do not advocate the seeking out of misery purely to get your own creative juices flowing, but if, for whatever reason, you’re not in a good place, use that negative energy to make something. It doesn’t have to be good. But it can help.

Anyway. I think that’s enough blabbering on for now. Just another day in the increasingly long list.