Writing challenge Day 1

It’s been a while since I have several things to write in the back of my mind. I finally got the strength to commit myself to one of those goal oriented challenges: Writing 2000 words a day.

It might sound like a bit much, now that I think about it, but today is Day 1 so I might as well get to do it. I have not limited the type of content I will write, my aim is to get as fluent as possible and to have writing become habitual. That means I will increase the number of posts/short stories/book chapters/papers/review papers/twitter posts.

Does coding count? Is it a line by line instead of word count? I have not started writing and I am already thinking how to cheat about it…I am not quite confident about fortune cookie writer, but, since I foresee writing to be paramount for my future, I’m 100% down to master it.

I’m a bit obsessed about measuring stuff. Thus, I will also be implementing a suggested technique to keep a record of the data that such writing endeavor produces¹. It goes like this:

Make a table with

• Date
• Time
• Project Name
• Type of writing
• Word count
• Place

It sounds fairly easy to keep up with recording (I record so many other stuff) and there are some pieces of information that sound like really interesting to have. I have always considered myself better at night. Is it really the case? Do I write better at night or in the morning before work? Do I write better at home or somewhere else? Should I go to the international space station? Maybe that would give enough inspiration to put those works together into text like it’s no big deal.

Recording means a lot of plots (oh yes it does) and I have played a bit with calendar/github like heatmap plots before (see here), so I will be happy to show the trends in future posts. I will also be commenting about my impressions with the technique and if I actually manage to make it a habit of mine.

So…having written 390 words and finished my first slotted time, I should go back to my duties. Every long journey starts with a small step, writing will continue in the next scheduled period.

Footnotes

1. Suggested here

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Citation

BibTeX citation:

@online{andina2018,
  author = {Andina, Matias and Andina, Matias},
  title = {Writing Challenge {Day} 1},
  date = {2018-08-30},
  url = {https://matiasandina.com/posts/2018-08-30-writing-challenge-day-1},
  langid = {en}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Andina, Matias, and Matias Andina. 2018. “Writing Challenge Day 1.” August 30, 2018. https://matiasandina.com/posts/2018-08-30-writing-challenge-day-1.