Enter The Age of Happiness : Writing Every Day

The streak that changed my life: 300 consecutive days of writing in 2020!

Do you remember 2020? It was a bit of an unusually bleak year. A year of forgettable highlights: wildfires, elections, protests, untimely celebrity deaths, a royal family feud, and well, a global pandemic. Nothing to call home about.

Yes, 2020 came and went like a violent storm in the ocean night. It battered the world with deadly pestilence and drought, and allowed for seeds of doubt, and divisiveness to spread across cultures and countries of the world. It was not what we had all hoped for in the new decade.

Despite the overwhelming evidence that seemed to justify a year of tolerated procrastination(stay at home, watch Netflix and do your part for society), I was able to keep my goal of writing every single day in 2020. And it changed everything!

The Inspiration

Two years ago, I joined a site called 750 words. Clean, minimal, and to the point, the site pushed me to write every single day. To retain my writing streak, I needed to tap my nimble fingers to the stroke of 750 words every day, and it became addictive. I rarely focused on editing my work or even reading it over.

The site provided me with a simple space to brain dump; it allowed me to exercise my love for words by exploring writing without the mental requirement of thinking about an audience, or ruminating over how aesthetically pleasing each sentence looked, or sounded.

It was engaging, enlightening, and incredibly effective at strengthening my resolve for daily writing. I wrote daily. I journaled, analyzed, tested myself with story starters, and extended my vocabulary by trying new words in different contexts.

I experimented with speed writing exercises, and did my best to embed the ritual of writing every morning before coffee. I rarely looked over my writing. I had as my simple goal, to get through that first million words.

“My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words-the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.” — David Eddings

That was the inspiration that drove me to complete my millionth recorded word during the pandemic. The journey started in June 2018, months after my father passed away, and I was able to find virtue through the grueling months of 2020, to complete that first remarkable milestone.

The Embedded Habit

Here I am, a year later, bloated with confidence and driven by an untethered desire to succeed as a writer. I am beaming with excitement and brimming with untapped resourcefulness, to be creative in my daily drive. Furthermore, I am addicted to writing.

I rarely make it through a day without keyboarding my thoughts on my computer. It is the marrow of my existence. Imagine going to sleep without brushing your teeth or checking your Instagram feed; a day without writing is unsatisfactory, and feels incredibly unhealthy. Most importantly, I am much much happier because of it.

A million words in, and I can confidently look forward, knowing that a robust routine has been firmly embedded. What does it all mean? How has this changed my life and happiness? Next, a snippet of the positive effects that have risen with daily writing.

The Positive Effects

Increase in Thought Clarity

I think much more concisely and clearly than I used to. It isn’t just natural maturity or progression. I feel drastic changes in the way I brainstorm ideas and come up with creative responses to things. I can organize and extend sporadic ideas into useful summaries and thoughtful responses. What was once a messy canvas of transitory and ephemeral thoughts, is now a better-defined collage of ideas that fit together. I feel a surge of coherence and clarity when I express myself in my head. I think more clearly and communicate these ideas to myself with less effort.

This clarity of thought has boosted my confidence at work and in my overall well-being. I have the confidence to express myself in larger groups now, knowing that my ideas are more defined and elaborate. Writing acts as a filtering tool for thoughts. I can self-publish my ideas before expressing them to the world, giving me that clarity of process. The added layering of reasoning and definition ,helps tremendously in extending coherence of thought.

Increase in Vocabulary

Throughout the year, there has surfaced a growing progression in my ability to use new words more fluently in context. The acceleration of vocabulary use has been resplendent in both my writing, as well as in my speech. I have found myself more capable of using an expansive and sumptuous variety of words; predictably so. What developed out of the habit is more eloquence, better articulation using a greater reach of words and expressions. I have grown in confidence and exert richer sentences and smoother play on words as I speak to people. In a way, speaking now feels like an extension of my writing: experimental, creative, and fun.

Increase in My Appreciation of Reading

The more I write, the more I want to read. There has risen a clear correlation between the two, a positive relationship. In addition to reading more, I feel more aware and attentive to writing structures and prose, and reflect thoughtfully on how authors have chosen to use specific sentence structures or vocabulary. I place myself in the position of the writer, as I read. The two mediums work in perfect tango. Writing has positively impacted my appreciation for reading, and that has consequently improved my writing. Bonus!

Increase in Daily Purpose

Let’s be honest here: life is often dull and treadmill-like. The tedious repetition of day-to-day operations can be taxing and discouraging, even in the best of times. I have found writing to exist as a cure to this lethargy. The blank, digital canvas that awaits my words every day, carries aspiration and hope; it is a place to resolve my problems and articulate my frustration. It offers itself as a purposeful medium to bring light and color into days that are far too bleak, gloomy, and uninteresting. As I developed into a writer, I transformed myself more as a creative thinker, capable of extrapolating purpose and pleasure out of the ordinary and mundane, or the dreary and desolate. As a result, every aspect of my experiences carries the purpose of existing on the page!

Having completed my first million words, I now venture into the arms of the future. I have written the first million and thrown it away, discarded its body into the lake. I am ready to put my foot down to the pedal and accelerate toward my next million, this one under the guide of formatting and editing. The first million has demonstrated my ongoing passion for writing and my endurance to persevere through difficult times. Writing every day will change your life; I can confidently assure you that.

And there are plenty of good virtues to greet you as you enter the door of every new blank page.