I’m feeling a bit disillusioned with this whole daily scribbling malarkey.

Is there any point?  Should I use the time to write daily on other things, things that aren’t public, things that I can work away on behind the scenes, like another book or less frequent blog-posts on specific topics?

That’s how I’m feeling these days, since my scribbles lately have generally felt flat and uninspired.  It’s nice to “check in” every day, it’s nice to keep practicing the craft of writing every day, hopefully keeping my writing muscle good and limber so that when I go to write other things I’m a better writer.

Probably just a naturally dip in the course of writing daily.  I’m doing this almost four months now, that’s a lot of writing.  If the posts were each just the 250 word minimum that I set myself as a goal originally, that would be over 30,000 words written.  Definitely more than that because numerous posts have been 400-500 words long.

That’s a lot of writing!

My book on my trip to India is 90,000 words long.  That means I could write an entire book in a year no problem if I approached it the same way as I’ve approached my daily scribbles: a minimum word-county every day, no excuses.

No skipping it because I’m not in the mood or because I’m tired or because I’ve left it go too late or because I don’t know what to write about today.  Just write something.  And at the end of the year I could spend another year editing out all the crap, polishing up all the good bits and adding all the necessary extra stuff that I missed first time round…

That’s how it goes with writing, for me at least, but I’m pretty sure for most other writers too.  It’s a long, complex process that takes forever, like running a marathon.  You know you’ll get there eventually if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, however long it takes.  Of course, with writing a book, you then have to go back through the entire thing again, so really it’s like running several marathons.

My point is, it’s daunting and overwhelming if you think too much about how far you’ve still to go when you’re only just starting out.  You’ve just gotta keep on putting one foot in front of the other and pay attention only to the next step after this one.

That’s what I learned from writing my book (which is currently being professionally edited, how exciting).  I used to think I’d never get through it all.

But I did and it’s a good reminder for all these kinds of challenges in life.  Don’t worry about the future, don’t stress about how much work you’ve still to do or distance you’ve yet to cover…

Just keep on putting one foot in front of the other, keep on returning to the task at hand and do your best, each and every day.

Eventually, to your surprise and utter delight, you’ll arrive at your destination.  It’s pretty much guaranteed.

Ciao darlings!

Lizzie xxxx