Today is Day 1 of a 28 day writing challenges I’ve decided to take on. Karen Marsten of Untamed Writing decided to launch this challenge and opened it up to anyone who wants to join. What a perfect opportunity to get back to writing regularly!

As a freelance writer and editor, much of the writing work I do is for someone else. Yet I have a million projects – some small, some large – that I have been wanting to get to. Committing to writing a minimum of 500 words every day, before getting to my client work, for the next 28 days will hopefully move some of these projects along.

This blog post actually counts towards today’s word count. I have been wanting to start a blog on this site since I launched it two years ago, but I’ve struggled to make it a priority. I’ve also been unsure of what to write about.  But this morning, while doing my morning pages (which I try to do every morning, and which I have decided are not to be included in my daily word count), a flood of ideas came through. I can write about how to survive academia. I can write about how to start your own business. I can write about how to build a happy, rich, and fulfilling life even if things don’t go as planned. Especially if things don’t go as planned!

It’s not like I don’t have a lot to say about writing, but to be honest sharing writing tips is not my passion. Neither is blogging about editing. Talking about the mechanical details of this craft simply does not inspire me to fire up my computer and put fingers to keyboard. It’s not even what I do while coaching.

Writing, for me, is a means to an end.  It’s not an end in and of itself.  It’s how I express myself. It’s the tool I use to take all those thoughts running amok in my head, get them out where I can look at them objectively, and make sense of it all. Writing is how I reach out to others and share what excites me.  Or makes me sad.  Or angry.  Or passionate and driven.

What I love most about writing is the way it leads to new ideas. When I put fingers to keyboard, or pen to paper, ideas flow. This is why I have become so dedicated to my morning pages. I start every day by journaling three handwritten pages, a conversation with myself that no one else is privy to. I ask myself questions, and answers emerge. I put down frustrations, and solutions just bubble up. It’s almost magical.

So this blog is not going to be about the mechanics of writing, although I might find myself inspired to chat about it from time to time. Rather, it will be about all that writing can do for me. For you. For everyone. But to do so, I need to write. Regularly. Not necessarily here, but necessarily every day for the next 28 days. And from there I will see what emerges.