Change The Habit

Make It Three Instead Of One

I was trying to change my habit from writing one post at a time to writing three posts at a time in the past three weeks. And guess what? I felt so uncomfortable with the change that I was completely blocked for a whole week.

However I was determined to make the change. Writing one post at a time, as I had been doing all along, was a little burdensome since it made me wonder what I was going to write every day. Also whenever I was in a mood for writing, I only wrote one post, which was quite inefficient. If I could form the habit of writing three at a time when I felt like writing, it would be more productive. And I only needed to write twice for a week.

Such a change was easy said than done. Writing three at once seemed to be a daunting task. And facing such an insurmountable task, my brain just shut down for a week and refused to work.

Then I thought about dividing the task into several stages, like writing three beginnings and arranging structures first. This seems to be a more manageable thing to do than finishing all three posts at the same time. And often the beginning and the idea are the hardest. A tiny little spark is needed for an idea. After that, one starts to wonder how to make the beginning more appealing. Failing that, one usually settles with something that’s not so good but not too bad either. Anyway, being able to manage the beginning gives me the feeling of accomplishing more than half of the work.

I think another thing I need to do is whenever I feel like writing something, I have to stop everything else and sit down to write. And no matter how badly I write, I don’t judge. Just let it flow even if it is a rant. I think I have to learn to do that. The problem is that whenever I feel like writing, I am very likely to be doing something else at the time. If I don’t stop what I am doing and start to write immediately, I lose the momentum. One hour later, when I think I should write something, I don’t feel like writing at all. It is very hard to manage the issue of willingness. I really don’t know how other people do it, but for me I can’t even manage my own willingness.

Stories I Entertain Myself With

I have to say I do have stories I entertain myself with, but I’ve never been able to write those stories. I don’t know why. I think one reason is that I feel that those stories are not refined, not fit for English language, not good enough. Why do I think this way? I don’t know. I think one of the reasons is that these stories are often historical, involving ancient Mongolians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese. Often they are kung fu stories I grew up with. I never know how to write kung fu stories in English.

I want to change this. I want to make an effort to write these stories. It might be ridiculous to do it, but I want to try.

Retell A Story

I think it is called fan fiction. I have to say I have always wanted to write fan fiction for many of the well known stories, but I have never been able to do it. Hmm, let me think. Which one do I want to tackle first? Well, if I want to make all the women happy in those stories, it can sound a little implausible. I don’t know if I have the ability to write parodies…