The title of this post is not referring to my blogging challenge. This is only my third (?) day of consecutive blogging, so it’s hardly a streak at this point.

The streak I’m referring to is my fiction writing streak. I’m now at 46 consecutive days of writing at least one sentence of fiction every day. Most days I write more than one sentence, but the one sentence bar is low enough that I can do it even on days (like today), where I can’t get to my fiction until the very end of the day and my brain is utter mush. Even in a state of utter mush, I can wrangle a few words together to make a sentence.

And thus the streak continues.

One thing I’ve discovered over the past several years is that I’m a creature of habit, and if I can keep a streak going and do a little bit of something every day, then I’m much more likely to be happy and feel successful. This is an idea taken from James Clear’s Atomic Habits, the idea that small, incremental habits can build up over time and lead to something greater. Even if I only write one sentence, I’m still keeping in touch with my work in progress. I’m still contributing something to the story. And like the proverbial snowball running down the hill, I can feel momentum building with each day.

So, today’s writing was limited. I managed about 84 words. But those 84 words are more than what I had yesterday. And they got me to connect with my story again and keep it fresh in mind. Now I can fall asleep thinking about it. And tomorrow, when I sit down to write again, I’ll have forward momentum. It’s a lot easier to keep the snowball rolling than to try and restart it every week or so. So I just keep rolling it a little further down the hill every day.

Keep rolling and keep the streak alive.