Turning 37 and Writing

My desire to write has peaked due to having had my birthday last month and whilst turning 37 isn't a big milestone it still got me thinking about what I have or haven't done with my life. I've always harbored thoughts of becoming a writer and have been slowly working away at getting used to writing.

To begin with I was simply writing about what I did each day in a journal which slowly morphed into a more general text document where I'd write down thoughts and ideas. I got quite into the idea of trying to write as much as I was physically able to do and during November, whilst that is normally the month people write novels, I endeavored to write as much as possible.

I did write a little bit of fiction in November although my main accomplishment was to write 100,000 words of journaling which was double my initial target. It was so nice to discover that I could actually sustain writing for so long and not run out of things I was willing to write. Sure a lot of it was writing about writing but to me that still counted.

I kept up journal writing since then and though I didn't exceed my high score as it were I did get close and set another personal best last month. I managed 75,000 words over the whole month but the real accomplishment was one day when I managed to write 14,000 words in a single day. 

To do that I spent pretty much every free moment I had writing and kept going until my hands were too sore. It really is addictive writing and seeing steady progress. Whilst my writing speed is nothing special I do wonder how well I'd do competitively writing for a consistent or long period of time.

After managing to do so well at self-set goals in private journal writing I wondered what would be the next goal and it seemed clear to me that it would take the form of some sort of public writing. I struggle with writing publicly, putting my voice out there, as I lack confidence that what I have to say has any use to anyone. 

I've wanted to deny that feeling of low confidence and have been doing what I can in terms of posting a micro blog on social media and some blog posts here and there on my blog. Which leads me onto what I want to do as the next step.

For this month I want to endeavor to write just as much as usual but to be sharing it online to my blog. Whilst I'd like to promise the moon and say that I'll blog every day I'll really be doing the best I can. I do have some vague ideas of writing a bit more organized thoughts than just journal writing, such as going over some of the programming projects and ideas for them that I've had.

My main goal will be to acclimatize myself to sharing what I think to a potential audience, something I can point to and say I made that. I hope I can write some things interesting but like my journal that I'm writing anything at all is an accomplishment in itself.