doing it!

a thousand words is worth...more than a thousand words?

TLDR: little update about how writing went this week.

thinking about doing short reflections and/or goal dumps in between diss diaries, mostly as a way to check in with myself and hold myself accountable. i’m borrowing this idea from Amy over on TikTok who shares her weekly goals, and then recaps how they went by the end of the week. i love how it feels like using the shame-y, comparative, hyper-visible nature of social media to our advantage.

earlier this week, i opened up a conference paper draft that i started, only to discover that i’ve written 1000 words!! after very little writing, aside from this substack post and making edits to an article, there hasn’t been much new word generation over here for a while.

there was nothing, and now there is a very substantial something.
writing is magical!!

it helps that i was able to recycle words from previous projects. art is theft, after all. i always fight the inner voice that says that copy-pasting and rewording from previous ideations is cheating and lazy. but writing is iterative, and it’s never really the same thing twice, even if the words are the same. so that voice is pretty tame for now.

it also helps that conference papers are motivating for me because i love the prospect of sharing. it hypes me up to know that people will get to experience what i feel are my very original contributions to the world. also, the conference serves as a deadline that creates a sense of urgency and energy around the project.

i had big monday scaries because i didn’t do my sunday planning for the week ahead. which means i wasn’t expecting to write this week.

but i had errands to run on monday afternoon and didn’t feel like going back home afterwards. i went to the library, sat at a table on an admittedly very sticky leather couch that faced a big wall of windows. i took care of the big girl life admin activities that needed doing that day and then proceeded to stare off into space.

“you can either do something here, or pack up and try to get work done at home. but you cannot do nothing here, and you know that you will not do anything but scroll if you go home.” the 2-4pm window is super rough for me. i never know what to do with myself: i feel like a floppy little fish bouncing around on the boat trying to get waterborne again.

i did something with myself! i put words on paper! i noodled around with an outline! i word vomited a thesis statement that will almost certainly change in three weeks!

and the crazy thing is that i feel like myself again. who would’ve thought that doing the thing that brings you the most joy and fulfillment would actually make you happy?

the hardest part was getting started, but i have felt great because i got started.