1,000 Days of Writing

Today I am 15,000 days old.

I've had it in mind this month to take on 1,000 days straight of writing.

I'm not one to take on small things first. I find it easier to jump in big.

In third grade, when I was supposed to come up with a project, I decided my topic was “computers,” and against the wise advice of my teacher and parents, I steadfastly refused to narrow my topic any further than that.

The first book of the Bible I decided to memorize is not the shortest, but is in fact the longest of Paul's letters in the New Testament.

1,000 days from now is Friday, March 26, 2021. Lord willing we'll have another presidential inauguration by then. I have no idea what this will look like over that time, much less all the world holds or all my life holds between now and then. Maybe that's what makes it exciting.

I'm not sure if I should make the commitment for this blog in particular, or if writing on one of my other blogs would count. I have several, and then some. Ideally I would already have daily content to post on my two Bible-related blogs.

I also Tweet, though I'm not thinking Tweeting counts as full writing.

I'm also not sure if writing ahead of time and scheduling posts for future days should count or not. While it would be fresh content for the day, it's not necessarily a keeping of the daily habit. Maybe I could do something like schedule posts only for the afternoon, and save mornings for things I write that day.

One thing I'm not worried about it a lack of content. I have a lot of thoughts on a lot of things, and I've saved many of them. As soon as I start another list somewhere of topics to write about, it very quickly fills with material.

That is, in fact, one reason why this 1,000 days idea sounds like a lot of fun to me. It's much more of a release than a burden. You're welcome to tag along. You're also welcome to suggest topic ideas or questions along the way.

One limit I may want to set for myself is a maximum word count. As I noted about my third grade experience, I can tend to think of huge ideas, and then find it monumentally difficult to make progress because it becomes too mammoth in size to begin. I have at least a couple writing projects in that category. One started as an introduction to a Sunday School lesson no more than an hour in length—it was a 45-minute introduction, but still!

Another limit that may be useful is a time limit on how long I spend writing each day. I once read on a productivity blog that to avoid procrastination, one writer would set aside time to write, and he had two rules for that time: (1) He didn't have to write. (2) He couldn't do anything else. Having tried that, I find it quite brilliant.

That could be useful for a lot of things: writing, Scripture memory, coding, reading, podcasting, hobbies, music practice, cooking, exercise, bike riding, drone flying, cleaning, etc.

The challenge then becomes, how to fit in an hour a day or week for each of those things?

Perhaps that's a challenge for another time. Perhaps that's another writing topic.