#161 - Writing Wrapup

Motto: Give it a Break Already

My Feature on constrained writing was the last post of a very busy month for the Column. To me it felt kind of like I went out with a bang. It was difficult to write, but full of fanciness. It was the feather in the cap of my "write every day in March" challenge. I write a lot, so March's challenge wasn't too challenging. I did that on purpose, though. I started my new job this month and have since been under an usual amount of stress. Add to that the wedding planning and it's pretty obvious I needed a light month (albeit most of the heavy planning is being done by Melissa - my efforts go toward supporting her efforts). Writing every day was easy enough. I'd write about how it was, the process, and my thoughts and feelings on the challenge - but I've written enough over the past 30 days. I'll just say that it didn't feel difficult. I wrote every day but one or two when I was preoccupied. I posted 16 Columns. That's slightly over one every other day. It only felt excessive insofaras I gave you guys too much to read. That's the only takeaway I got from this month. I guess you only get out of a project what you put into it. My next challenge will be more difficult. Before I wrap this up, there's two other things I want to say: I had a half day over this past weekend to do with what I pleased. I decided to use it to migrate the Life Tracker from the old Google Spreadsheets over to the new Spreadsheets. I figured it would be a huge todo, but I was able to create a template version of the Tracker, import all my old data, make a couple of aethetic changes, and use a newly introduced function to replace the old, slow custom-built function I made. The whole thing took less than 3 hours; and I expected it to be days worth of work. Now the Life Trackers is faster, more reliable, and just a bit prettier. I'm proud of it. I just watched Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I have so many things to say, but don't want to spoilerize everyone this early. I'll just say this: It was phenomenal and I loved it.

30 Day Challenge Breakdown: January: Paleo Diet -> Lost ~5-10 lbs & learned a ton February: 5 Books -> 3 books March: 30 days of writing -> 28 days of writing, 16 Columns April: ... My usual workout consists of a half mile warmup, 30-45 minutes of lifting, sometimes a bit of HIIT if I'm feeling zealous, then a cooldown. If I were to do only cardio, my workout would be to run MAYBE 2 miles. That's not good enough. SO...

I, Aaron Gillespie, will run 50 miles in April.

...and I'm off to start running!

Top 5: Pros/Cons about Writing Every Day

5. Con: You are on your own little world more often. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. For me, I'm already in my own little world enough as it is. It's a bad thing.
4. Pro: It keeps your mind sharp and forces you to process things.
3. Con: It takes time that you could spend lifting weights and cooking food.
2. Pro: Forcing yourself to write when you don't necessarily have something interesting in mind going in can make you lead you to some interesting places you wouldn't have otherwise gone.
1. Con: Sometimes you don't make it to those interesting places and you are boring.

Quote:
“There's no 'i' in 'denial'”
- Some comedian that I can't recall and thus won't get credit for his joke -