The Wall

I've begun to hit the wall in my "blog daily" quest.

It's just like running. I don't distance run. But when I do I've run until I can't run anymore, I run for about 45 minutes. Then the burning of my muscles sharply increases, I feel like I'm putting in the same amount of effort, but I've slowed to a snail's pace.

I'm not tired. But my resolve has been tested. I question why I began this quest. Am I really getting something out of doing all this? Or am I doing it now just for the sake of doing it? If I just stopped, who would notice, who would care?

Well, I began trying to write every day in order to get better at writing. I have this (probably idealized) memory of myself when I was good at writing. That was when I was writing a lot, blogging on my personal time and writing for fun. I really don't do either any more, so the idea was simply that if I could write more, then I would get better at writing again.

On one hand, I definitely feel habits forming. I'll go about my daily life and something will happen. If it's something I can joke about, tersely comment on, or brag about, I'll tweet it. But there have been a bunch of things that really deserve more time and attention to explain than either limiting my opinion to 140 characters or tweet-spamming my followers. Often I forget what exactly I meant to blog about when I actually get back in front of a keyboard, but that's another issue.

On the other hand, it's work. I'm writing just for the sake of writing. Most of the "review" posts for books/video games/etc that I do are just because that's how I've been spending my free time, that's what's on my mind, and that's all I can think to write about at the time. I could take time to really just tell interesting nonfiction stories, or dream up wondrous works of fiction, but I just wouldn't be able to pump them out in the one-post-per-day pace that I've set for myself.

So we see quantity over quality. In the hopes of eventually making quality.

The idealism of such a simple task is gone. Now it's just me with 11 months more to go of writing down inane details of everyday life in as vivid a way as possible. Or complaining about it, as I sometimes do. I'm not ready to give up the dream yet, but we'll see how I last after the next month.

Is there a writers-high? Like a runners high, but for writers?

I guess there's only one way to find out.