“I feel as though I am always writing my first draft. As though my life is a series of edits that I never have time to complete.” – page 184, Pillow Thoughts, Courtney Peppernell

First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

I hope you brought in the beginning of 2018 with people you love and care about, and ones who love and care about you. I’m really excited for this year, and what the Lord has planned for me and all of you!

This will be the last post in the “Type of 2018” series, and I wanted to end it with this subject because, let’s be honest, I feel like in 2017, I did pretty terrible at writing, at least on my blog. To the Brim was constantly abandoned for weeks, sometimes it seemed like months at a time, yet I was still writing outside of it in journals and on my phone. I tried to comfort myself, knowing that some of the best writers and bloggers I know don’t blog every day, but only blogged about important topics and events in their lives, and still had a decent following, and decent writing.

And Peppernell truly has captured how I feel as a writer sometimes: I feel like I start writing all sorts of poems and blog posts and stories, and then I never finish them. And then I feel lost as a writer, and then I feel terrible as a writer for feeling lost.

But honestly, it’s okay, and I plan on embracing my status as a writer as so in 2018. One of my goals this year is to write a poem every day (I know, it seems crazy, right? Like how can I write a poem every day if I can’t seem to get it together to blog every day?). But, as I’ve said in the past when I began the whole “just start writing” mindset, I think that in order for one to become a better writer, you’ve got to keep writing every day. Tons of writers and teachers of writing have said it, and I believe they say it because it works.

So, along with writing one poem a day (at least), I plan on blogging every day for an entire year, and seeing where this takes me. I say this with all sorts of pride because I am proud of myself: I crushed the blogging game at the end of 2017. Like, I almost posted every day in the month of December, and that is amazing. And I think I’ve found a good system to keep me blogging like that for the rest of the year. I just need to have the discipline to keep it up.

I will admit, I am a little nervous about this goal I’ve declared. As I was reading a blog post by a favored writer of mine, I thought to myself, See, you don’t have to write every day. It’s okay; ease up on your goal so you’re not majorly disappointed when you don’t achieve it. 

But I also don’t want to doubt myself and my abilities; like I feel like me and my mindset are the only things stopping me from making this blogging and writing a poem every day thing happen. And if that’s the case, I don’t want those things to stop me.

And I also know I’m only human, and I may miss a day or two. I truly don’t want to though, so I will try my best. I look forward to all the words I’ll be writing onto pages, saying in my voice memos, and typing on my keyboard, either my laptop or phone.

What about you? What’s one thing you really want to push yourself to do in 2018? If you think it’s impossible to accomplish, what is a solution to truly doing your best to making it happen?

Again, happy new year, everyone! I pray that this year brings you all sorts of adventures, learning, observing, writing, or whatever else you’re into!

#MishyWrites #Typeof2018