Fandom Snowflake 2022: Challenge #2

[scrubjayspeaks]

Challenge #2: In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Well, last year, I challenged myself to take a picture every day. And you know, I never missed a single day. It's now just one of the things I do daily. I won't say I do it without thinking--there have definitely come a few evenings when I realized I needed to take one and just snapped a quick shot of my dog sleeping--but it feels natural now. And I realized what I really like is having that record of things I saw and did. I don't really care if I never make art this way, if they're mostly not shots anyone else would care to look at. It makes me happy to go back and say, oh, yes, it took until this day for the corn to be taller than me. It makes me happy to have so many pictures of my animals, most of whom are getting quite old.

In March, I took up a daily practice of Japanese to build back some of the meager skills I had from college. Haven't missed that, either. Don't know if I'm any good yet, but I'm keeping at it.

I already set a goal for myself in December to do a daily one-card pull from my tarot deck. Daily habits, things that take maybe five minutes of time, seem to be a winning strategy for me.

I've been wanting to set a daily writing goal for myself along these same lines. (I don't work on Lake Lewisia every day, though I do write for it every week.) I just can't decide what I want that goal to be. It feels like something dreadful will happen if I set the wrong goal. I'll burn myself out, or get frustrated, or just waste my time writing rubbish.

I've been thinking about Terry Pratchett's 400-word approach. He had a day job back then too, and a family, and he wrote every day because that was the thing he decided he would do. I'd like to do that. But as soon as I think that, my mind throws out all sorts of objections, all sorts of what-abouts, all sorts of reasons why I can't possibly commit to that.

Hm. Well, to satisfy my own curiosity, I just checked to see how much 400 words really is. It's...four Lewisia pieces, on average. Of course, like poetry, writing a three-line story takes a lot longer than writing three sentences in general, but that just drives the point home a bit more. 400 words, huh? Of whatever fiction I fancy working on at the time?

That...sort of sounds like a doable goal, doesn't it?

Oh, blast, I think I've convinced myself.