January 16th 2023 - Back In The Habit

I restarted a habit this morning, something I tried to establish last year. To show up at my desk every morning.

I did well with a record of 85 days in a row last year. And it did eventually lead to me writing more.

My thinking is that in order to write successfully (for me anyway) I need to be in a good habit of doing it. If I don't make a habit out of it, instead I'll make a habit out of logging onto the PlayStation or binging Downton Abbey on Netflix.

Once I'm at my desk, I have a little sand timer which I flip over - I like using that as I've never taken the time to figure out how long the sand timer actually is - I think it's somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes.

Whilst I'm at the desk I follow Neil Gaiman's advice of either 1. doing nothing or 2. writing. Being given the ok to do nothing feels better as it takes the pressure off having to write.

Once the timer is up I mark the habit complete on my Streaks habit tracker on my watch. And I'm good to go.

Looking back over these posts I have mentioned some other habits such as staying at my desk for longer. Those have gone out the window in recent weeks so this will be the start of building them back up. And I do have my Goldsmiths course starting next week which should help get me writing again so it will be good to be back in the habit for that.

January 4th 2023 - Going for Goldsmiths

As a bit of a new year treat, I've booked myself onto a short story course run by Goldsmiths university which I'm now very much looking forward to. The official title is 'How To Write Short Stories That Resonate'. It kicks off online on January 24th and runs for 10 weeks, by the end of which it promises I should have at least 1 fully edited story. Looking forward to it, though slightly apprehensive as it says sharing work will be a key part of the course. I've never shared my writing with a full group of writers before. It seems like a good step out of my comfort zone though and I'm sure I'll gain a lot from it.

December 17th 2022 - Autofiction? I barely know them.

I'm currently reading 'My Name is Lucy Barton', by Elizabeth Strout and a review quote from the Washington Post in the top left corner on the inside cover caught my eye when it said, "...coming close at times to the rawness of autofiction...".

I've never heard of autofiction before, but I'm intrigued. Especially after what I wrote in my previous post with wanting to experiment with writing elements of myself into my work more. I'm also glad to see that I have some examples already on my bookshelf. Outline by Rachel Cusk, How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti.

It's always nice when you find the name of a thing in your head.