My Social Media-less Life

I was going to wait until tomorrow to write this, but just remembered I’m having a write-in with friends for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) and would rather write my blogs in the privacy of my own bedroom.

Not that I don’t publish them for people to see, but I prefer people to see the finished product and not my struggle with the tiny keyboard I use that connects to my phone and sometimes decides I don’t need P’s, M’s, N’s, D’s or spaces in my vernacular. But it also likes to put multiple Y’s in anything with a Y… so…
And let’s not talk about any special characters… but I paid for what I got and all the reviews said the keyboard would give me issues with those letters… the space bar is just my fault because I try to type too fast… apparently that’s a thing?

Anyway, I started what will be my fifth consecutive year of NaNoWriMo, although if I stay on track this will only be the second one I’ll finish. And even if I don’t stay on track, I WILL finish. My best friend won’t give me an option in that department. And she’s published six of her own books, so she knows what goes into the whole process… I definitely trust her judgment on the matter.

All that to say, not having social media has again been a positive since I have nothing to distract me from writing. I put on my Personal Do Not Disturb and I get no notifications whatsoever and it is AMAZING. iPhone really outdid itself with the different Do Not Disturb settings and I am not mad.

I use them all regularly, but the Personal one is my absolute favorite. Anytime I’m doing something that I want to put my whole attention toward, I just throw that on, finish what I’m doing, and then I’ll come back to the “world.”

Writing is one of those things that I want to put my whole attention toward, so I’ll throw it on and just go to town. When I write out my blog, I do the same thing.

Writing is cathartic in a way. It helps me put things into perspective and is a way for me to “vent” without making it sound too whiny… or more whiny which I then reword and rethink and reevaluate.

But reading was always helpful to me growing up, and at some point I began writing down thoughts or some of my own stories because it fascinated me that people can just throw words on a page in such a way that a person (myself) could be so taken in by a character or by a problem that needed some solving and they could be taken on a journey with the writer.

The curriculum that we used for school was also very writing-heavy so it was a way for me to learn… about myself, about what I retain when I read, about the world… really about anything.

But in all… writing is one of the easiest and hardest things someone can ever do. One shouldn’t just write because that’s where the money is. I can very much assure you… that’s not a great place for money unless your name is Stephen King or some other very, very big name.

But if you feel like it’s something God is calling you to do, by all means, do it. But don’t be surprised when it takes more out of you than you thought it would.

That’s definitely a thing.