Can I commit to this challenge after failing in the past?

I’ve fallen off on my writing lately, primarily due to the slow recovery from getting shingles in May. I already had advanced astigmatism in both eyes, but the shingles changed the shape of my astigmatism in my left eye enough to make it difficult to see well through my glasses. Writing anything became a frustrating chore, and I gave up on it for a while.

I’ve since been to the eye doctor and gotten a new prescription, so I’m back to seeing better. The shingles are still challenging, affecting the nerves on my scalp, forehead, and still around my eye, but with medication, it’s bearable.

I’m not one for excuses and finding reasons why I can’t (won’t) do something, but the idea of not being able to create work on my terms was stressful, and that stress was exacerbating my condition.

If you follow The Hungry, I recently announced that I was taking a month-long hiatus on the newsletter, returning to it in mid-July. Early summer is always a busy time for my family (birthdays, anniversaries, summer sports). Add that to my desire to de-stress my life; I needed a self-care break.

However, if you know me, I don’t do well with sitting still.

This last week has been great. No work obligations allowed me to spend a lot of quality time with my family. I did think about work a bit, but nothing too outrageous. I have some plans for refining The Hungry, which I’ll talk about in the future.

I’ve also had a lot of signs recently pointing me in the direction of creating an online community exclusively for enterprising creatives who want a space to share ideas and learn from others on how to grow their business. That’s a huge idea, and I’ll start very small. I plan on sharing more about that with you this week.

That brings me to the big idea for today. Because of the shingles and my lack of writing, I feel rusty and a bit out of touch. As a personal goal, I’ve challenged myself to write every day going forward with the goal of 1,000 words per day.

I’ve tried this challenge in the past, and it has never played out long-term, but when I am in that mode, I maintain a creative momentum that allows me to churn out good content regularly.

A thousand words is a lot, though. This sentence has me at 435, and I’m legitimately out of ideas (I told you I was rusty).

The thousand words don’t have to be in one document, but going forward, there needs to be a plan. I have this blog/newsletter to consider, The Hungry, and I’m trying to get my butt off the couch and in front of the camera for YouTube. Those videos require scripts, so that helps.

Also, with this community idea, I want to start stacking up some valuable content to share with people as a resource within that community. That’s a gigantic undertaking and a bit intimidating, but the work has to get done, and 1,000 words a day will help make that happen.

Repetition, momentum, and forward progress are the words for summer, and I plan on putting them to good use.

585 words, in case you were wondering.

Rusty!