Reading Writing & Writing Writing

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Reading writing is pretty common in this house. There's a book club, stacks of student assignments (especially now at the end of the semester, hello!), journal articles to edit, blogs to read, and so on. But writing writing...that's something else. I want to write, but I don't have time. Nobody has time for anything, right? We're all busy. But I guess it's time for this teacher to take some of her own instruction, namely "Everybody's busy and nobody has any time, I know, but everybody has priorities. Your writing needs to be high on your priority list."

I also give my students a list of file formatting requirements which are, if I'm honest, pretty obnoxious for them, no matter that they make my life infinitely easier. After listing the requirements I further annoy them with the statement, "They say it takes 30 days to form a habit. We have a semester. Let's make it a good one!" I'm rolling my own eyes at this statement...I am definitely annoying!

But there's truth in that. Writing takes discipline, and disciplines have to be a priority. And sometimes you also need a little accountability and structure to get the ball rolling. I've recently joined a small writing group to help hold me accountable to my writing goals. One of these goals is to post here at least once weekly. This forces me to show up and write something. Bam. I did it.

::STOP::

I also decided to attempt a five-minute writing challenge this week and the timer literally went off after I typed "I did it." Love that. Also, the writing prompt for this week was 'writing'. Kind of perfect timing on both counts!

Anybody else a fan of writing writing? Or are you more of a reading writing sort of person? What things do you do to help you form a new habit and/or hold you accountable?