Seven days into my month of my NoMoBloPo. So far, I’m undecided about the benefits of forcing myself to blog every day. On the plus side, the discipline is good. Forcing myself to come up with something to a short deadline means I have to gag the internal critic and not worry about the imperfections. I’ve written more in the last week than in the last six months and i’ve not resorted to “filler” yet (this post notwithstanding…)

However, I’m not convinced that consistently producing sub-standard entries is a good thing. None of what I’ve written so far has been as good as I would usually aim for. Some of what I’ve posted feels to me like the start of a decent idea, but needing another few hours work. I’m not sure if it’s in the spirit of the game, but I may go back through them when the month is over and clean up and expand.

Or maybe that’s the lesson I need to learn – to finish something and move on to the next, instead of reworking and tinkering and hand-wringing. Developing the habit of starting AND finishing will be definitely be useful for the future. I’ve struggled in other creative projects to get beyond the initial idea and earliest “drafts” so perhaps i’ll learn how to break that cycle.

Another possiblity is that i’ll find a direction for the blog. Most of the blogs I admire have either a clearly defined subject and/or a distinctive writing style. Mine has always been a bit scattergun – whatever happens to be in my head when i got to the computer. Maybe after a month long exercise, I’ll finally work out what the hell i’m trying to say and how to keep saying it on a regular basis.