3 things I learned from writing everyday for a month

On massaging ideas and writing candidly on different mediums.

You should write more, I thought to myself.

So I did.

I decided I wanted to publish a post everyday during the month of November. It was hard. I didn’t actually publish something every day. But that’s okay. Here’s what I learned.

1. Some ideas need more massaging than others.

I’ve found in the past month that when I sit down to write something on Medium, I either have a post that just totally flows out of me, or I get stuck.

It’s either there or it’s not — at least at that moment, on that day that I am supposed to hit the publish button.

When I get stuck, sometimes I return and massage the idea. Other times I don’t.

What I realized is that sometimes the pressure to adhere to my goal of publishing something daily, I didn’t give all my ideas the time they may have needed to marinate.

Am I 100% proud of everything that came out of the last 30 days? Maybe not. But I’m proud that I wrote.

2. Different mediums provide different outcomes.

During the past month, I’ve rekindled my love for my journal, explored writing with 750words.com, and of course, written on Medium. I found that these three different, well, mediums, all produce different kinds of work.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Here, on Medium, I write with the intention of hitting publish. I write as if I should have a theme or thesis in each post and I don’t let the words flow. I police myself. I edit myself. I’m critical of myself.

With 750words.com, the words flow a little more freely. I can explore everything from why I haven’t been able to keep with a routine to what I want out of my career. I talk about my family. I write about food. I have no agenda, and I just see where the keyboard takes me.

My journal is a crazy little space where I just write until my hand hurts. Give me five minutes or fifty — that’s pretty much the only requirement for stopping. The words in my journal are straight from my brain. There’s no keyboard or screen to intercept it and think of it being for anyone else’s eyes at any point in time. It’s all mine.

3. Writing candidly produces ideas you never knew were there.

When writing with 750 Words or in my journal, I found myself stopping on certain ideas that came out with candid writing. Ideas that I wanted to explore. Whether they were related to my personal growth or about my line of work.

It’s this kinds of moments and ideas that I want to reproduce — ones that can’t really be replicated when you’re already writing with a theory or theme in mind.

This is a recap of my 30 Day Writing Challenge.