Nearly

It’s 9:52 PM and I just brewed a cup of Sleepytime tea (which I’m not convinced packs much of a sleepy punch). I was about to wrap myself in a blanket and flop onto the couch and read a book on my iPad for an hour or so until I go to bed. Then I remembered this stupid little experiment where I’m challenging myself to write and publish something (nearly) every day.

The “nearly” modifier creates some nice ambiguity that I can use in my favor but I’m not sure I can go more than a week without writing and say I’m nearly doing something. That seems more like an occasionally than a nearly. Or a once-in-a-while.

I don’t think anyone has ever become world class in a discipline by doing something occasionally.

I don’t even really want to be a world class caliber writer (hence my satisfaction with nearly) — I just want to become better than I am right now. Maybe write a book. Definitely write some articles that make some folks say, “Hm, that was pretty good.” Modest goals for a modest commitment to getting better at something.

It’s 9:57 PM now and I still want to read this book and I still want to drink this tea and I still want to go to bed at a reasonable hour so I’m going to say this article is nearly, nah — absolutely, long enough. Because it’s not about writing something awesome once in awhile.

It’s all about writing something, anything, every day.

Well, nearly every day.

This article is part of an experiment where I challenge myself to write and publish something in under 3o minutes every day — typos and run on sentences and abuse of italics be damned.