Hello, k-dreamers. Writing this article feels really strange because, for me, August currently “is,” not “was.” I did not spend this month having an affair as my title might suggest. I did, however, attempt to get my affairs in order. You see, I had nothing planned for the month of August. No school, no outings, just tumbleweeds. I had just completed an online course offered by UBC on outlining a novel and there was one section about writer’s block that was eye-opening. The main takeaway I got was: “Am I really a writer if I don’t do it regularly? People who don’t show up to work aren’t really workers, are they?” Taking that class motivated me to start “working,” so that’s what I did in August.
Back when I was living for the hope of it all…
At the end of the novel outlining course, we were tasked with scheduling time for ourselves to write the novel. Makes sense. What are we gonna do, just let the outline sit there, unwritten? As I thought about it, I kept making excuses as to why I couldn’t commit to a schedule. The two big ones were a) I lack self-discipline, and b) my schedule for the next six months is unpredictable due to school. What works for August won’t work for September. So I thought: Why not treat August as an experiment to see how much work I’m capable of doing?
I went all in on this experiment. I started by setting an alarm every day, including weekends, for 6:45am (it took at least 15 minutes for me to actually get up, but still). After brushing my teeth, I did 20-30 minutes of exercise. That’s right, I’m getting back into shape. Hot girl summer isn’t over yet! From exercise and breakfast, I finally reached the first block of free time I had to do something productive. That meant doing writing exercises, novel writing, songwriting, and of course planning blog posts. I made it a requirement to do at least two productive activities every day and to note them on my calendar.
Will you call when you’re back at school?
It’s crazy how much I learned about myself while conducting this experiment. First, I had over 10 hours of free time every single day in August. I even did the math for September, and I should still have plenty of time to work. I now have empirical proof of my laziness, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Second, my methods for getting work done weren’t perfect. Writing exercises started to feel like a drag. I couldn’t even bring myself to write for 10 minutes. Novel writing was also coming along a lot slower than I had intended. I mean, I didn’t expect the whole book to be done in a month, but so far I haven’t made much of a dent.
Another area that I feel needs improvement is my blog posts. If I’m being honest, I’m not happy with how I wrote my last personal update. I started off by venting, and by the end, I didn’t really know what the point of the article was. So I kinda just left it at “haha, I guess I’m too hard on myself,” which felt unrelated to what the post was about. If you were expecting something else from that article, I’m very sorry. From now on, I’m gonna try spending more than one day writing my articles and see if that makes a difference.
August was an experiment.
I started the month enthusiastic about how much I was getting done, but then I began to slow down halfway through. Some days were busier than others (like the ones when I went shopping with my family), and I was lenient about doing less work on those days. But other days… I just didn’t feel like working. Even so, I’m not too discouraged. August was an experiment, after all. I know I just have to revise my methods before September rolls around. Until then, I have to keep “changing for the better.”
Video belongs to Republic Records and Universal Music Group.