What you are about to read is entirely experimental. At some point while I was writing this last night, it transformed from a stream of consciousness document used to test an idea into something I’m actually publishing. It’s much less serious than anything else I’ve published so far this year and has more to do with the writing process I want to develop than the “objective” of my Substack, so keep that in mind. I’ll go ahead and hit SEND before I talk myself out of it.
Who’s up for trying something new? Sometime last week while browsing Substack’s new Notes feature, I came across a writer on the platform who is known for creating the “1000 Words of Summer Challenge.” It’s pretty straightforward: to participate in the challenge, every summer you write 1,000 words every day for fourteen days straight. It usually starts sometime in the middle of June and runs til the end of the month. From what I’ve gathered, there aren’t really any rules. If you’re working on a novel (or hoping to start one), you commit to knocking out 1,000 words of that novel every day. Whatever project it is, the only rule is that you commit to getting 1,000 words on the page or the screen. The only ongoing writing “project” that belongs to me is my Substack, which hasn’t been touched in at least three weeks. There are a couple reasons for this, but the main reason is that I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing, in some form or fashion, every day. When I started my Substack, I was working through an extensive writing process as suggested by Jordan Peterson. Pretty much any spare time I had was devoted to brainstorming, outlining, rough-drafting, or editing. I haven’t done that in several weeks, so I haven’t been shaping any of my thoughts into something worthy of publication. Herein lies my reasoning for kicking the tires on this 1000 word summer challenge. The purpose of this post is to do just that.
“I’m really enjoying your writing, but it’s way over my head.”
I’ve received this comment a handful of times since launching my Substack. Even though I’m not sure that kind of response is what I was looking for, I am glad to be making people think. But while I want to make my readers think, I don’t want to always be so serious and heavy. I think I’m starting to decide that sometimes I want to write just to write, not necessarily to always make the readers think so deeply. I chose to publish on Substack because of all the features they offer, but I can’t deny how much I enjoy the thought of growing up in a pre social media internet world, where something they call the Blogosphere was a thing. People just ran personal blogs, and everything wasn’t so serious. While I have every intention to continue publishing the same kinds of thoughts on Substack about internet ministry, books, conservatism, worldview, etc etc, there’s a part of me that thinks a personal-style blog every now and then won’t hurt anyone. That’s where 1000 Word Summer might come in. I can’t write 1000+ word essays every day for two weeks straight. Well, maybe I could, but they wouldn’t be very good, much less thoughtful. But just writing 1000 words a day that don’t have to be so serious? That’s definitely doable. Writing 1000 words a day will improve my writing simply because it’s something I’ll have to do. The accountability of publishing it every day would keep the writing focused, even though it won’t have the depth of a normal essay. Finally, I think writing 1000 words a day will start to give me new directions to write in once the challenge is over, because writing is thinking.
My first hack at 1000 word summer will be a testing ground. It will be an unpolished version of what’s really going through my head. As we continue kicking the tires in this post, let’s take a look at what this might look like.
Today, I finally finished Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Tale of Two Cities. I set a goal of 52 books this year, and this was only book number 11. I’m at least 4 books behind schedule, but I’m not sweating it. I set a reading goal because GoodReads asked me to, but I made a commitment to focus more on what I read this year instead of how much I read this year. Part of that commitment is a sub-commitment to read more fiction, but please don’t think airport novels. Instead, think classic fiction. I made a rule for myself that for every “modern” novel I read, I have to read two classics. A couple months ago, I finished Andrew Klavan’s When Christmas Comes, which was fantastic by the way. A Tale of Two Cities was the first of my required classics reading. I wish I had some thoughts to share, but I don’t. I enjoyed the book, but I’m ashamed to admit that it was the first classic I’ve read in several years, so it took me awhile to get through and I probably didn’t always give it the attention it deserved. Maybe after reading some reviews and refreshing my memory I’ll have something to say… For the second classic, though, on deck sits C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair, book six in The Chronicles of Narnia. I am also ashamed to admit that I’m 26 years old and haven’t finished this series. (Before you ask, I haven’t read Lord of the Rings either). I’m working on it, okay?
The last tire to kick, at least for now, is the distribution model for this little challenge. I’ve gone all in on Substack, despite my periodic desires to publish my ideas elsewhere. I won’t get into that here, but if you really want to see me nerd out, email me or comment below and ask what I think. In any case, Substack is driven by email. If I do this, I will of course be required to publish every day, but I don’t want to blow up your inbox. I’m told that it’s possible to publish to my publication without sending all of you an email (or a post notification in the Substack app), so that will be the best way to go. But that means that if you’re dying to follow along with this, you’ll have to check my home page every day or wait for me to send out a weekly digest email with links to all 6,000 words I published that week.
Okay, that’s 1,043 words. Let me know if I’m completely off base or if this is something I should go for… We’ve got a couple months to decide, unless I go for 1000 Word Spring. Thanks for hanging in on an odd post, if you made it this far.