Part Of The Process

It’s better to write something than nothing, right?

As a way to welcome me back to Calgary yesterday, I was greeted with a mind-melting migraine and snow. Today the temperature is bouncing back up to +8. Pick a lane, Calgary, jeez. But here I am, back in Calgary. Woot.

Vancouver Island rarely gets snow, but it gets a lot of rain, not as much as Vancouver proper, I’m told, but there are a lot of cloudy-gray days. Of the six days, I was on the island, three were sunny, three were rainy. Categorically, rain is better than snow. There, I said it. Now I need to stop talking about the weather. What's next, yelling at kids to get off my lawn?

So here I am, lurching my way back into my 100 Days Project writing challenge. I’ve missed a couple of days here and there due to travel and sleep deprivation, but if I’m being honest with myself (and you, dear reader), I missed those days because I was lazy. Of course, I knew I was travelling and was likely to be tired the next day. I told myself to write the afternoon prior, or write a bunch of stories I could deploy if I just didn't feel like writing one day. But did I do that? Nope. Will I do that before this project is over? Maybe, but I doubt it.

I enjoy the process of discovering what I'll write about when I sit down at the keyboard too much. And I like being surprised by what shows up on the screen as well as pushing myself to just write every day. That was the key to this project.

What have I been doing, you may well ask. I’ve been gathering Salish Sea energy over the past week and am more focused than ever before. I’m three-quarters through this challenge and am ready to start adding more writing to my plate—the first of seven branding books I’ve been wrestling with over the past four years.

I have written hundreds of pages (full-size pages with tiny type) only to realize that I’ve been trying to do too much with one book. These hundreds of pages need to be broken down into smaller and more manageable chunks. So, this exercise of writing (mostly) every day, reading other people’s work, and travelling has done its job. I have a plan and a track record of writing that supports the plan.

The following story will likely be the recounting of the time I was nearly devoured by a giant Sunstar while scuba diving in China Creek, but who knows. Maybe it will be a story from Dropbear’s Big Ol’ Jar of Stories? Thank you for reading; even if every day isn’t epic—it’s all part of the process.