"Confidence is the willingness to try"
                  Mel Robbins

I love Mel Robbins.  What a superstar she is.  I first discovered her on Tom Bilyeu's podcast and have since read her book and avidly follow her YouTube presence.

What a great writing statement that is.

My writing is bad.  I know it.  I think I do anyway.

Is it because I lack confidence?  "Pshaw to that", claims Ms Robbins... in words she did not actually say but I paraphrased quite... generously.

Just get out there and try, ya noob.

How many writers stare at words and think... there is no point to this?  Who am I to write?  Do I dare disturb the universe?  Is it a disturbance of the universe if no one ever sees it?  My writing is no good...  What pretense have I to believe my words have any purpose whatsoever?

No matter.

Just write.

The world may not need my writing...  But I do.

More NaNo Thoughts

There is no magic pill.

I am not lecturing anyone, I am lecturing myself.

The one good thing about NaNoWriMo for me is that it forces me to be accountable to others while I am doing it. 

I have sent out about ten messages on the NaNo page to people but very few reply.  Some of them will be weirded out by a random message perhaps, even if they did indicate they were looking for one...Too bad.  But worse is that many of them are never read at all.

Some pop on the NaNo page and discuss how excited they are to get writing and ... well... they never check in again.  Too bad. Again.

There is a lot of potential out there... a lot of writers that just need a habit to come back to.  That is the perk of the NaNo page. 

I tell them in my message that I am certainly no expert.  NaNo is the thing that had me writing at all for a while.  And coming back to that site to check in was a good habit to get started on.  But alas, perhaps they know a hypocrite when they see one :)

But back to the magic pill.

Sports, school, life?  It is all the same.  There is a lot of suffering and a lot of misery out there.  A good bunch of it we create ourselves.  I sure have created a lot of my own angst: almost all of it from writing and not writing enough.  But most of the aspiring writers want to be told that there is a magic method. There isn't one.  Unless sitting your rear in a chair and clicking keys counts.  Then there is the magic pill.

Who am I telling this to?  Myself mostly. :)

NaNo... Check it out...

https://nanowrimo.org/

And It Begins Again

A perfect lead in to NaNo,

Podcaster Lewis Howes interviewed James Clear about the power of habit, how to set habits, and what habits really are.  It was a fantastic interview, and I will link it here as best I can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRse5I_p7tA

James stated that habits are the compound interest of self improvement:  How amazing is that?  

He stated that the effects of your habits magnify over time.  He was talking about everything, but doughnuts were mentioned several times.  

The immediate impact of a delicious doughnut is the delicious doughnut…  But in the long term, that doughnut sets up a habit that can lead to weight gain.

He also did mention writing a few times.  

When you write every single day you reinforce the habit of writing but also reinforce the image of you as a writer - which is what appealed to my occasional writer brain.  When you write daily you become a person that knows they write daily.  When you write daily, well, need I say… you might be able to call yourself a writer.  How amazing would that be?

NaNoWri Mo is incoming.  

I have seen all kinds of posts there about people worried about being able to write that much.  

Well, sounds like James Clear has a suggestion.

Change your habits… change your identity… then NaNo is going to be easy.

Thanks James.

And thanks Lewis Howes for having a great chat about habits.