Writing is a muscle.
Someone said that to me. It may have been Kat, my writing buddy. Or it may have been Natalie Goldberg, author of the book “Writing Down The Bones”. A book that Kat recommended. I don’t have the time to check just now because I have my timer on. I’ve switched on my 10 minute timer you see. The length of time I have to talk to you today.
So, writing is a muscle. Therefore it needs to be exercised daily. I find this thought quite provocative. As you may know, I’ve picked up a couple of new habits in my life this year. One is called the healthy eating habit. The other is called the exercise habit. The latter means daily workouts, 6 days a week. So the concept of “writing is a muscle” is something I can fully grasp straightaway. An aha moment.
So my new writing buddy and I started to write to each other daily. (I will tell you our story one of these days) We are now in Day 21 of our write-off. It takes 21 days to form a habit. And we have just reached the 21-day milestone in our writing partnership. Funny (or is it uncanny?) how the universe moves.
We have a rule. We type headlong full steam ahead. No going or reading back to edit, no erasures. Unless of course auto-corrects or stubby fingers type a completely wrong word. We use English, Tagalog, and Bisaya. We send the raw material in its purest form. Profanities are allowed as often as we need to.