New year, more CAS

I've been ringing in the new year with a brand-spanking-new CAS activity, and I really think this one is going to be a great personal challenge:  it's called 750 Words.  I read about it -- as I seem to do with everything -- online.  It's an initiative to write 750 words on any topic, once a day, every day, and it comes in the form of 750words.com.  It keeps track of your postings -- you can go back and read any of your previous entries, although they are completely private from the rest of the world -- and it even tells you some pretty neat statistics, both about any given entry, and about all your entries in general.  For example, each day it will analyze your word choice and tell you what were your biggest emotions and concerns were in the text, such as upset, death, relationships, affectionate, money, and so on.  It also tells you the mindset the entry was written in based on four spectra:  introvert/extrovert, positive/negative, certain/uncertain, and thinking/feeling.  It tells you if you primarily wrote about the past/present/future, about sight/touch/hearing, about I/us/you/them; it even lists the words you used most frequently in the entry.

This is my chart from today, showing the words per minute I typed at throughout the entry.  The green dot represents the moment when I reached the daily goal of 750 words, and the green line represents the number of words in the entry at any given point in time.

As you can tell from the above photograph, you get badges added to your page to keep track of your streak.  I am entered in the monthly challenge for January, so I am attempting to keep that streak going throughout the entire month, and then continue it into February.

So, what do I hope to gain from all of this?  I always have loved writing, but I never seem to have the time or occasion to do much of it.  750 words is a really carefully thought out amount; it's not so long as to be like a novel, but it is not something you can just whip off in a few minutes on whatever topic.  You need to make a conscious effort to sit down, set aside twenty to thirty minutes, find a prompt, and just write continuously, and it is so very different from any other writing experience.  In the school newspaper, you're writing to convey information; same with school assignments.  This type of writing can be stories, reflections, journal entries, thoughts... I've actually been quite surprised with what I've written about so far.  Because of the length entailed and the stream-of-consciousness nature of continuous writing, it ends up going in directions I didn't expect, and I'm learning some things about myself and some opinions I hold that I never really noticed before.

I've found that writing every day is not easy.  Since it requires that conscious effort, it's not really something that can just become habit.  You've got to focus and push yourself to do it each day, but I really think this will improve my writing skills, and also help me understand myself and my motivations just a little bit better.

I focus quite a bit in my writing on the sensation of touch more so than sight or hearing; my writing contains a lot of "us" as opposed to "them" or "you" or "I".  I use 31% more conjunctions than the average person.

I can tell that 750 Words is going to be a very rich activity, and while it is definitely a commitment, it is one that I am prepared to make.