Writing Out Loud to Write for Life
Nothing like starting out my writing journey with a pretty average typing test result. However, with all that I've learned lately, especially lessons from Grit by Angela Duckworth, it's precisely knowing where my weaknesses lie and knowing my higher-level goals, that puts this test result into a healthy perspective. This is me as I am now, 11:36 pm on a Friday night, just having finished a beer and setting up my own personal blog. I've refrained from using social media for years now because I had built up in my head that it was a bit odd or self-centred to be posting. But here I am, just paid for a domain with my full name and a new site, just for me and my words.
Creating this site is a step toward completely immersing myself in the world of writing and reading. It's funny how it all started actually. I was gifted a gratitude journal, and for years on and off I've been writing in it. However, over the past several months has it finally been a core part of my daily ritual. Once embedded, I had this growing feeling that I wanted to write more, more than just answer questions about what I was grateful for and what would make the day great. So off I went googling new journals and researching using Youtube.
Soon enough, I stumbled across Ali Abdaal and his video on his journey into journalling I Journaled Everyday for 90 Days. Here’s What I Learned. - YouTube. It introduced to me the idea of Morning Pages. Ever since I discovered this exactly 30 days ago, I've not once skipped a day of it. Its basically journalling 3 pages without any structured prompts.
I've taught myself that I have a lot to say about the world, the things which happen around me, and the people in it and most importantly I've found that I have a lot to say to myself. It's funny because you get out there in the world to find and explore, but I found so much within the digital pages of One Journal that I've created all on my own.
So about immersion. I figured long ago, that I value learning from others and being able to consume knowledge and turn it into value that has meaning in my own world. I've found that my way of learning is through absorption and practice. So immersion. This is how I break it down for myself right now
Absorption:
- Youtube videos on writing
- Podcasts on writing
- Master Classes on writing creatively
- Reading stories
Practice:
- Daily gratitude journal
- Morning pages
- Short stories
- [New] Personal blog website
I understand and appreciate that all that I am doing now is not novel or groundbreaking. But it marks a very important part of my life. Is the part of my life where I am taking something seriously in the best sense. That I know without a doubt that writing is going to be a core part of my life.
So here now at 11:54 pm, 18 minutes later. I'm hitting publish on my first post and taking another step deeper into the journey of writing.