Advent of Writing Reflections

This is my twentieth post in the Advent of Writing series. Today I’ll do some reflections on this challenge, what I’ve learned so far and what the experience has been.

You can read the first post Why I’m joining this challenge but I’ll give a short tl;dr:

Being a really good communicator, written and spoken, is extremely valuable.
You can become a great communicator simply by practicing.
I’ve wanted to write more for years but never managed to stick with it. Maybe this time will be different.

Writing every day is challenging

I’ve tried to do Advent of Code before, so I kind of knew from experience that sticking to something everyday is hard. It’s easy to get a 5 to 7 day streak. But as you get closer to the 12 to 14 day mark, it’s very likely that “life just happens”. Something unexpected comes up, work takes longer, etc. During these days it’s extremely easy to fall off the wagon and miss a day.

In the scope of an Advent challenge, missing a day isn’t ideal, so I’ve really made sure that I write every single day. No excuses. But honestly, if you’re trying to build a longer, sustained habit of writing, you should probably be a bit more lenient. Missing one day isn’t that bad, just get back to it.

Writing every day is easy

Paradoxically, it’s not that hard to sit down and scribble your thoughts every day. Most of them aren’t worth publishing, but you probably won’t know in advance which are and which aren’t.

This challenge has been incredibly helpful for me with regards to the last bullet point: I’ve never been able to stick with it. Having a forcing function that just makes me write, and get it out, has helped a lot. I’ve written pieces that I’ve had in my head for ages, and pieces I never imagined I could write. The advice is so obvious that it’s silly. Just start doing it and you’ll improve. I’ve heard it over and over again, but acting on obvious advice is one of life’s hardest parts.

And I’ll be honest about it: some days writing felt so easy and the words just flew. Other days it felt like being stuck in a tar pit.

Editing is divine

To write is human, to edit is divine.

Stephen King.

Editing text is probably the most cumbersome part. It’s easy to spew ideas on a paper or screen. But reading your article for the fifth time, thinking through the logic, is it interesting enough, could I tweak the intro? Honing in on these things is the real work.

Some of my texts are more edited than others, due to time constraints. And at least to me it shows. Edited texts get to the point faster and have a clearer structure and build-up, usually without losing that personal touch. Editing shouldn’t take away your own tone and style. It should enhance and polish it.

I think this has been the biggest learning so far: learn to edit and polish to improve my texts. At the same time, set a hard deadline so I don’t polish the blog for ages and end up never publishing it.

Write more

The bigger question for me is: how will I continue my writing once the challenge is over. Will I just stop and go back to basics? Or do I find a nice balance by publishing a blog once a month or once a week?

I’ll set myself the goal of maintaining some form of cadence, but a lot less intense than so far. I’d like to write longer and more in-depth texts and publish less frequently. The benefit and drawback of this challenge is that most of my texts have been pretty short. Just one argument, to the point.

Finally, I’d like to direct a huge thanks to Tereza for setting up this challenge. It’s been, and still is, a good journey. You should do this to.