This is a story about verbal diarrhoea...

In the interests of writing regularly, but trying not to be repetitive and boring, I sometimes try to pick a subject which will hopefully bring a bit of variety. My writing style is a stream-of-consciousness, so it can be a little difficult to write about a subject I haven't been thinking about; I tend to jump around, in a scatterbrained kind of way. I hope the low quality can be excused.

Having written and published more than 1.3 million words on this website, my next long-term goal is to reach 2 million. When I was getting close to my first million, I became quite fixated with the finishing line, so I was writing an enormous quantity, but the quality for my readers wasn't great.

My present plan is to write 700 words per day, from Monday to Friday, and to have the weekend off... like a 'normal' job. At that rate, I will be producing 182,000 words per year, so I won't hit 2 million words until 2024, which I guess is OK. What's the rush?

The reason for writing 700 words, or fewer, is that it means each essay is a short read instead of a long one. Readers are occasionally in the mood to wade through a long essay, but more often than not, they just want something snack-size. If I hope to cultivate long-term daily readers, I have to avoid bombarding them with more than they can possibly consume.

Why do I even want readers anyway, you might ask. Well, that's easy: why write and publish if nobody's reading? You might as well write in a private diary if you're not going to publish. Frankly, I find it great, to exist in public (a little bit) so that I'm not quite so lonely and alone; isolated. Even though it seems a little strange, to have such a one-sided conversation, it's better than being completely invisible. Without my public presence, I'd have sunk without a trace a long time ago.

I've written 334 words. That's enough for today.

Tags: #writing