I put in all my word numbers for now and it says that I have written approximately 43000 words so far for milwordy. That’s a pretty good number for me, considering that I sometimes struggle to do 50,000 in one month when I’m doing Nanowrimo. I’m not entirely on pace to be doing the whole shebang right now, but I am getting words.
So, three weeks in, what has milwordy done for me so far?
I think I’ve developed this habit of writing at least twice a day now. I have usually been up in the morning doing Morning Pages for the Artist’s Way or reading or just sort of toddling about. I get up much earlier than my husband does, even in the summer when I don’t have classes, and I cherish that morning time, that time when I can just do whatever I want, as long as I don’t have to go in the bedroom. We have a very small apartment, so when I am in the office, the bedroom is right next door, and the living room is right behind me. 700 square feet is tight quarters for two people, even in a two bedroom apartment, but I like my husband and he’s a writer, so he understands if I am sitting in front of a keyboard with my fingers flying and my noise canceling ear phones on that I am writing.
The stuff that I write in the morning is often stuff that is inconsequential. My thoughts on the previous day, just getting words on the page. I call it my mental vomit. I get all the stuff in me up and out on to the page. Of course that metaphor goes away when I start to think about that I go over what I have put on the page and I think about what I want to keep and what is important to me, and what I can use, but often it is just crap, just some sort of mental garbage that I need to get out of me so that I can go on with my day and be a regular human being, whatever that is. Morning writing is where I can get the things that are bothering me out of me so that I don’t have to think about them. I put them on the page, and they can stay there, and I don’t have to think about them. That is what is most important. I can leave these thoughts there and come back to them, but more often than not, they stay there on the page. I will copy and paste these thoughts into my DayOne App, which is a great journaling app that just sort of keeps everything in one place and I can add tags and pictures and things, but more often than not, I just copy, paste and forget.
My evening writing is a little bit different. I spend time with it usually. I will write about writing; I will write about books that I am reading. The most important thing that I do in the evening is write for other people. While the morning writing is just word vomit to get thoughts out of my head, the evening writing is things that someday someone will read - hopefully. I write my blog posts in the evening, I will work on my novels in the evenings, and sometimes I’ll write a poem or two. The evening writing is for an audience, and it gives my day a settled feeling, like I’m actually accomplishing something, that I have done some good in the world.
Milwordy has begun to help with that. It motivates me to put the words on the page. I may be a bit behind, but really I’m only competing against the person who I used to be, and if I’m only competing against her, I’m winning every day because I’m creating this habit of writing for myself... and for any audience that I may get
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