Why I wrote 750 words for 500+ consecutive days

That's 416,250 words written during that period.

Before that? Zero.

Getting into the act of writing

I didn't have grand plans to write beautiful words when I embarked on this journey.

I just needed to write.

Isn't it odd that for most activities, people were able to practice? If you wanted to play basketball, you practised how to shoot, how to dribble, and how to make passes. You did drills, and you got better.

I don't know where I got the idea that to write, I must write perfectly. Or that for it to count, it needed to be published for the public to read.

So in late 2019, I decided I would write 750 words every day.

It wasn't to become a prolific author. It was to condition my body to remember what the act of writing feels like.

Finding the words

When I began this challenge, I was super rusty.

I couldn't even string proper sentences together.

Everything was either a short phrase or a run-on sentence. There were days that I wrote "I don't know what to write here" repeatedly until I hit 750 words. Sometimes I picked my favourite song and wrote the lyrics to that.

The only thing that mattered was that I showed up and wrote something—anything!

Not long after that shaky start, my phrases turned into proper sentences. My blabberings turned into thoughtful musings. I got reminded that writing is a verb. And that if we focus on writing (the action), the words will come.

Slowly at first, then all at once.