September 6, 2026

300 words
is my writing goal
every morning

and i usually hit it
[no, not always, but usually]
and i usually feel settled
by that time

enough words to get the morning sleepies out
enough words to find a thing i’m fine with posting
enough words to feel warmed up
emotionally/intellectually/creatively
for the day

but these past few days
300 does not feel like enough

and there isn’t anything that says
300 is a limitation
it is literally a minimum
[and even then, these are all rules i set for myself
so if i can only do about three words
that turn into a short poem day,
that’s fine for me,
that’s fine
that’s fine]

but i find it incredibly interesting
that a few weeks ago
i ran into multiple days
i couldn’t even find the time to write
anything
and now, two-ish weeks later
i’m itching
for more
and more
and more writing time

and making it happen

[am i, after five and a half years of this silly, self-imposed writing challenge
becoming something like
a “real”
writer?]

July 8, 2026

writing has always been how i
come to terms with my emotions

even before i wrote poetry every morning
i would analyze things through personal essay

and even before i was intrigued by a writing major
i was writing-creating things
constantly:

scenes
lists of characters
concepts
a single piece of dialogue
just a whole bunch of names i loved

while those might not be the
standard journal-to-figure-out-ones-feelings kind of writings
i think they were my way of figuring things out
in my brain — lists to organize the chaos
constantly thinking in theatre
ideas upon ideas upon ideas

maybe that’s what i should do as a writing challenge;
find one of the concepts i created as a child
and see how far i get in the process of fully committing to it
and creating it
and making it come to life as a fully fleshed-out piece
[whatever kind of writing that may be]
as an adult…

that could be fun…!

January 5, 2025

a goal
became a challenge
became a dare
became a pact

and i’m only acting in accordance with
the original wording i signed
onto in this contract
with myself

[perhaps i will stop referring to this as a poetry-writing challenge
with a word count goal
and use instead the words
dare
and
pact

they hold more equal weight
with what this has done
to my soul]