Write Every Day: Day 3 Bonus!

I wrote some more today. Just thought I’d share it:

Handwriting

And now here, the writing by hand. So much slower than typing, but no less important. The stream of consciousness here is slowed almost to a standstill. Forming the words, trying to plan in advance, and yet the scribble seems to be going about as fast as it possibly can.

Thought is so much faster, but so much more prone to misdirection and distraction and derailing. We really can only pay attention to one thing at a time.

So here’s the thought that’s knocking on my head: I want to donate my (PO)S-10 truck to KUTV and write a 250 word story on it. Maybe more. The story of my car history is somewhat interesting.

Now how much is in this little page? Est – 200.

Write Every Day: Day 3

A few things going on in my life right now:

• A temp job paying $14/hr, 30 hrs/wk, doing data entry and various office/paperwork type tasks.
• Weekly Buddhist meditations with a small group who meet at a house with a nice meditation room in a small, separate building.
• New furry friends (yes, I’m one of those if you didn’t already know) that I’ve been hanging out with most evenings. This has been getting me out of the apartment and around other people, which has been good for me.
• Budgeting. It’s taken some effort, but I’m finally in the beginning stages of properly tracking my money, mainly using YNAB4. I’ve put this off for so long, but now I’m finally paying attention to how I spend my money and hopefully soon I’ll be able to find places where I can trim down my expenses and save some money.
• Taking care of business. I’ve been doing much better and setting aside time to take care of things like bills, car registration, etc. I don’t really have a ‘backlog’ of all this stuff I need to do like I used to. More like ongoing projects that I chip away at throughout the week/month.

Things I can improve on:

• More actively seek new jobs and opportunities, rather than laze about with the modicum of comfort I’ve achieved.
• Diet. While I do generally succeed in making healthy food choices, I could definitely be doing better in terms of sourcing and cost for my nutrition.
• Sleep schedule. I’ve been sleeping only about 6 hours or so/day, with occasional afternoon naps. I think the main thing is just getting away from computer screens in the late evenings so I’ll actually start winding down. Should probably impose a 9 or 10PM ‘screens off’ policy for myself.

That’s about it for now. Just a good, high-level list of some of the main aspects of my day to day living at the moment.

Personal Challenge: Write Every Day for 1 Week

One things I’ve noticed in my journeys is the power of taking small steps, day by day. By creating a healthy routine and chipping away at large tasks, goals, or what have you, one can slowly but surely accomplish just about anything.

I’ve seen it reduced to small, pithy sayings such as “write every day”, and I’ve decided that this is something I want to do, as well. Looking at my life and prospects, I’ve got a degree in English that I don’t really use and experience in videogame development that I’ve let fall by the wayside in the struggles I’ve had with first depression, and then apathy. I’ve been directionless and unfocused, and my routine has generally been anything but.

This does not sit well with me. While I enjoy being laid back and easygoing, I do not like the feeling of being functionally useless. I want to challenge myself and make writing a habit. Work it into my routine.

I’ve been kicking around this whole blogging idea and concept for a while, but haven’t really done anything with it, and I feel that it is something that I can use to challenge myself. The goal is to challenge myself daily, so here is a challenge to myself: Write 250 words every day for the next week. This seems like a good, small, achievable goal. 250 words is not much, and I think is just long enough to write something meaningful.

Once I’ve got this routine going, I can start thinking about directing it towards something meaningful, but for now I think I’m going to just start free writing. Just whatever pops into my head. Maybe some of it will be interesting, maybe not. Who knows? We’ll see.