I discovered yesterday while writing my 750 words that, if I write another 750 in the same day, the 750words.com Streak Fairy will extend my streak1. Well, this I knew from skipping a day. What I didn’t know was that the Streak Fairy will fill *any* blank day! This happens no matter how far away one writing day is from the next.
It’s oddly satisfying to see those little green squares filled in after typing 750 words. But 1500 words can sometimes feel like a stretch. And sometimes a slog. And sometimes a lot of nonsense on the page.
And yes, in accepting these gifts from the Streak Fairy, I’ve made somewhat of a liar of myself. And yet … I’m sure I do write a total of 750 words … somewhere throughout the day.
Found in shopping lists (note to self: add honey), text messages to my husband (“are you still in the bathroom?”). They’re in marketing copy for summer blasters. Emails to angry bosses. And diary entries that scream “Fuck This” over and over in the margins of my meeting notes.
But I don’t get any confetti for it.
It’s not just the confetti that makes me keep writing. (To be honest, it irks when I’m on a roll. But god, it felt good at the beginning.) There is something euphoric that happens at around 750 words of continuous writing. My heart expands. The word count, as the site will tell you, is similar in length to the three 8.5-by-11-inch sheets of morning pages recommended in Julian Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. What I like to call my AWAMPs (rhymes with ‘a ramp,’ stands for Artist Way A.M. Pages).
Writing right now is my favorite experimental art form. I also get high talking about writing and reading about writing.
Yesterday, I was having a conversation about writing with a Doctors Without Borders volunteer outside a grocery store. Giddy as a school girl.
Before writing this morning’s post, I was reading an article about Sheila Heti, who(m) I’ve never read. But her writing style as described made me feel so much better about my own. The article felt like it was giving me permission to write the way that I want to. (Sometimes I feel I need external permission, an expert’s go-ahead, to do anything enjoyable.)
And I’m happy the Streak Fairy says I don’t have to write every day to keep up my streak. Maybe I’m a liar, but I’m a happy one. Because writing feels so good.
- My friend T tells me that “streak” means something entirely different when you’re potty training kids and washing their underwear. ↩︎