I got an email, either yesterday or today, from 750words.com, letting me know that they’d upgraded their website, and as an original member, I was grandfathered in to various things.
For those who don’t know, 750words.com is a website where, each day, you write 750 words. (Probably obviously.) It can be whatever you want–stream of consciousness, scenes, journaling, whatever. And it keeps track of streaks (you unlock badges at different streak amounts) and can keep track of your friends’ streaks.
Anyway, I went and logged in (well, I had to set up a new account on the new site, which they then linked to my old account) and apparently I hadn’t used it since 2011, though I’d used it for quite a while there. I remember writing bits of Book 1 three drafts ago through it, as well as short stories and talking myself through plot and life problems.
If I do it today–hold on, I could write this blog post there. Standby.
Anyway, if I do it today, it’ll allow me to continue my 32 day streak. That I left off on in 2011 sometime.
And, like, 750words was useful to me at the time, but obviously not that useful, since I haven’t touched it in nearly 14 years.
Writing is weird, right? Like, you hear that consistency is key, that you should write a little every day to be a writer, but I’ve found that writing just to write is not necessarily the most useful thing to do.
I absolutely think you should write on a regular basis. That’s partly why I’ve done this blog for so long, because I write once or a couple times a week, no matter where I am in other projects. Keeps the old writing chops from getting rusty and all that jazz.
But writing just to write can be a mixed bag. I know people who write a million words every year. Year after year after year. That’s so many words. I don’t think, in my wildest dreams, I could write a million words in a year. That’s 2740 words every day. Almost 3K every day.
And more power to them, honestly. As I said, I can’t do it. I have a day job and kids and responsibilities, and while I am more than capable of writing 3K or 5K or even 10K in a day, it’s not feasible to do it day after day after day.
And what I’ve found with these people who are so wildly productive is that they’re not doing anything with said writing. I mean, of course, people are allowed to write just for themselves, and if it makes them happy then I’m not going to judge. But I don’t want to do that. I want to share my stories and entertain people and hopefully make their lives just a little better.
And that means sometimes I’m revising, or editing, or marketing, or submitting instead of writing. And I think that’s important too.
The other thing I’ve found when I’m writing just to write and not for a goal is that it feels like a chore after a while. Like, some years ago every month I was writing a short story based off a random combination of prompts I’d saved, which was interesting! 3 prompts, which might or might not line up with each other. It was challenging and a good way to stretch my creativity. But after a couple months I started to procrastinate it, and I think it’s because it didn’t have an end goal.
The main writing just to write I’ve been doing the past few years are my RaTs prompt responses, but even these serve a purpose, as I often use them to write bits that take place before or after novel action, or to explore side or non-viewpoint characters’ thoughts and opinions, or to see what someone else is doing off-screen.
This allows me to understand my stories more fully, which makes them read more believably.
So while I’ve reactivated my 750words, I don’t know how often I’ll use it. Some people swear by morning pages or journaling, but I scratch that itch here and have never been great about consistency when trying to do it in a more traditional manner.
All that being said, one of my writing groups has decided to do bingo cards of prompts and tropes starting in February, and I did sign up for it. I figure I can use them a variety of ways–if I’m working on something long form and need to add something in, for prompts not unlike how RaTs works, maybe even a short story or two if something catches my fancy.
We’ll see. I absolutely reserve the right to drop the whole idea if it’s not working.
But, Kit, I hear you say, isn’t it good to occasionally write for fun?
Sure! But working on novel projects, and revision, and all that jazz–in general I find that fun. I mean, sometimes it is awful and like pulling teeth, but I do typically enjoy it and that is why we continue to carry on.
What do you think, squiders? Worth it to do something to maintain a streak?
