Day 100

I’ve published something new every day for the last 100 days. I originally started with the goal of publishing something every day in Q2, but extended it to 100 days because that sounded cooler.

I have a longer piece in the works on the lessons learned. But here are some off-the-top-of-my-headlines.

Writing challenges are best thought of as a way of understanding your style. Not producing a particular output. When I was forced to hit publish each day, my patterns, both good and bad, became pretty obvious. The way I would turn abstract on particular topics, bloating sentences or mixing metaphors.

I also have a lot of different interests, and it was interesting to see which ones cropped up the most, which flowed most easily, and which fell short of what I expected. I’m excited to read back over the posts and see what the most common themes were.

I loved being able to take ideas to published pieces in a day. I got to express some ideas that had been floating in my head for years. But I also got frustrated by the end. Realistically, most pieces ended up between 400-600 words, and there’s only so much you can do in that space. The idea of writing something longer is delicious right now.

It’s clear I could do this forever, but that it wouldn’t amount to much. It’s too scattered. But I’m happy I’ve honed my ability to communicate ideas and storytell, so that when I return to writing longform again, I’m better equipped.

I explored stories, musings, spiritual pointers and everything in between. I don’t think I settled on one as a favourite, but I enjoyed being able to deploy each as appropriate. I feel guilt when I move between these different modes of writing, telling myself that the writers I like stick to one distinct style.

Publishing in silence is hard. These posts weren’t emailed out to anyone, but I did send out links to all pieces weekly, via my Substack. It takes dedication to keep it up, and I only got small bursts of feedback. Thanks to everyone who reached out.

I can’t wait to not publish anything tomorrow.