100 Words for 100 Days
I’ve been inspired by a post I read on the Clearleft blog. James Bates, creative director, discussed the 100 Days initiative, and how everyone at Clearleft would be trying it out. The original concept came from Michael Beirut, Senior Critic in Graphic Design at the Yale School of Art.
The idea was for graphic design students to undertake a design exercise every day for 100 days. The actual exercise is up to each individual and has ranged from dancing in a different spot every day to photographing someone new. What’s the point of it? Even Beirut isn’t completely sure, but it’s easy to see that such an exercise can help us hone our creativity, self expression and personal discipline.
As a new beginner with creative writing, and in the process of setting up my new online business, finding the time to write is hard. I knew that I must start to make the time to write, and the 100 Days project seemed a fairly ‘easy’ way to start. But what would I write? Unsure, I explored the 100 Days concept a little more, and found that Jeremy Keith had decided to write 100 short blog posts and gave himself the constraint of needing to write exactly 100 words.
I thought this was a great idea, so I promptly stole it and modified it: I would write short fiction scenes of exactly 100 words, one scene every day for 100 days. I reasoned this would be a good way to learn how to write economically and it would allow me to practice getting across an idea as simply as possible. But more than anything, just practising writing would be its own reward.
Writing 100 meaningful words is much harder than dashing off 500 words of rough “first draft”, so I think I may have set myself a difficult task. I have no idea if I can do it, but there’s only one way to find out. Read Day 1 here.