Starting a microblog (+ why I want to write)
Update: a few people have joined the challenge now, so I’m collecting names, blogs and starting on this doc. Different people are starting on different days, so you should still join!
Today I have decided to start a 30-day “microwriting” challenge. I saw someone doing a 500 words per day challenge a few months ago and was inspired to try, but I found the goal too challenging (ironic, given how much I write privately on the daily, when prompting, journalling, DMing, taking notes…), so I dropped it. Today I had the idea of lowering the minimum to 100 words, which sounds just too ridiculous to miss, and should be good enough to start training the muscle of writing daily and publishing, which currently feels too intimidating.
I also realized that it will feel way less intimidating if I just create a separate mini-blog clearly meant for “mental scribbles”, so I will be doing that.
A few minutes ago I was talking to someone with such a deeply ingrained writing habit that they couldn’t relate to my “barriers” at all (#goals!). As I was enumerating them, he stopped me and asked why I wanted to write at all if it feels so difficult to me, so I think this might be a good first topic to cover here.
I’m much better at writing in bullet points than in interconnected prose, and this is in fact one of the issues that I am trying to fix, but for this one first post I will allow myself to use this format…
Why I want to write:
- The ability to write clearly seems quite correlated to the ability to speak (and therefore think?) clearly
- Attempting to write down your ideas sheds light into how half-baked or incoherent they are
- Writing about “things you know” allows you to identify knowledge gaps (giving you the opportunity to fix them)
- Writing about what you read or learn improves retention
Most importantly: I feel like a dumbass, and I want to be less of a dumbass. (Any advice appreciated!)
However, speedrunning 100-500 word microposts is probably not going to help much with the above, and it is also not my main motivation. My main motivation for these is to spark conversations with friends and friends-to-be.
For example, I can wrap up this post by asking more experienced writers who might read this to share their advice or their “writer story” with me. I can ask people to keep me accountable. People might reach out and ask if I want to join or start a writing accountability group. I might find others who are just getting started, and looking for peers to exchange feedback with.
Even better: I might encourage one other person (or even two!!) to start their own microblog, in the same way that I was inspired by countless others. That in itself, even if I were to fail this challenge and never post a single piece again, would already feel incredibly satisfying.
(I now feel obligated to hit “publish”, as that last realization has turned this into a matter of social duty!)
(Another example: I’m currently doing a biosecurity course, studying (aging) biology, and I just signed up for MathAcademy. When/if I write about any of this, there’s some chance that people will reach out with questions, advice, or just looking for peers. I want to wrap up this post by attaching one of the blog posts that had the biggest influence on my desire to write online: “A blog post is a very long and complex search query to find fascinating people and make them route interesting stuff to your inbox”, by Henrik Karlsson
(yay, I hit 560 words!)