Atrophy

When my streak ended the other day I decided that this was not going to be an every night thing, but I now believe that to be a mistake. I missed last night because we have a house guest that was watching the tv in this room and I deemed it too difficult to attempt to write. Tonight I was about ready to simply head up to bed but the lack of activity in my mind made me stop. I could feel atrophy setting in.

It was at that point that I knew I had to write something. I sat down with absolutely no idea what I was going to write but here we are and I feel like I am in a rhythm now. This is how things go. Working out, writing, saving money, any thing that takes a bit of conscious effort can atrophy quickly.

In my life one missed day at the gym has turned into a week, into a month, into a year or more. Writing has been much the same. These are both things I enjoy doing but I know how quickly everything can go wrong. Miss one night of writing and all of a sudden I am thinking the habit is no more. I shuffle off to bed and enjoy the extra ten minutes I saved.

Writing this is just one more thing I do before I can crawl under my warm covers, shut my eyes, and drift off to sleep. It is an important thing though. It keeps the brain active or something like that. I am not sure that is true as the entire point of starting it was to get my creativity flowing and the only thing it has accomplished is that I have written a journal most every night.

Writing more was only one part of the goal, and while I have actually had a few ideas on what I could add to my portrait of my made up town I haven’t written a single thing more. Even when I have had good ideas for short stories or the such I haven’t done a thing. The nightly journal is nice but it needs a pair. It needs creative time set aside.

What I am saying is I need a second writing block during the day. This is ten minutes. Well it is eight minutes and thirty seconds right now. This is more than enough time to write out a bit of a short story or work on a poem each day. Nothing has to be finished in one sitting. It can wait a day or two or three for completion.

I do not know how many words I have written in these ten minutes when I sat down with not a thought in my head, but it is nice. I need to sit down with a thought and a direction and make something creative happen. I just need to pick out a second time slot during the day that works for ten additional minutes of writing.