Every weekday I try to do some writing. I made a promise to myself to “just write” (as the idiom goes). I leave my place, go to a coffee shop or wine bar, then sit down and write. If it’s after work, I’ll usually do a small little journal entry to get into the groove of putting words to page; pen to paper, if you will.

My entire goal really isn’t to write anything particular but to simply write. I wanted to get into the habit of writing each day with no judgement directed towards what I did end up writing. The first draft needs to be without judgement or else I’ll never get anything down.

My habit started strong and is, thankfully, continuing still. I don’t have a goal at all when I do this. I want this to be guilt-free. The only thing I want me to feel like I must do is to write. Anything else is a bonus. Something extra to feel good about.

Well, one day, as I got up from my work desk and grabbed my backpack, my best friend (and roommate) asked if I wanted to hang out. I had only recently started trying to implement the habit, so I was very nervous to accept his invite. I told him what I was doing and he seemed disappointed but supportive.

I hopped on my bike and pedaled to my selected coffee shop. I had full intentions to grab a drink and immediately sit down to write, but it didn’t happen. Instead, in line, was a person with whom I struck up conversation with. It lasted longer than I expected as it was a rather curious idea that she presented to me.

For those who are curious, the idea is the notion of “relationship anarchy” and I was fascinated by just that phrase that I felt deeply compelled to find out more from her.

Anyways, this person and I talked on about this thing for a bit until she needed to leave. We said goodbye and I went back to my seat. I did a quick journal entry and finally–finally!–opened my laptop up to do some creative writing.

I got a total of six (6) words down before I needed to go to get to another engagement I had.

That’s right. Only six. It was barely a sentence.

The funny part is that when I got back to the apartment my friend thought I had been doing nothing but writing for the hours I had been gone so he assumed I had done thousands of words.

Our conversation when I got back went a little bit like this:

“So how was writing?”

“Oh, I didn’t get much down. Only like six words?”

“Six words?! You didn’t hang out with me to only do six words?!”

To say the least, he was salty. I told him of the conversation I had with the person but that didn’t really help my cause.

The next day when I left to write again, he told me that I “better do more than six words” this time. Fair. I kept my word that day.

So now began the little joke that I must do at least six words each day or else he’ll be upset. It’s a good little metric really, because six words is so miserably low that how could I not do that?

Now, here is where it gets funnier. I’ve started to frequent a cafe each weekday and have ended up interacting a lot with some of the other regulars. One of them is named Haz.

Now Haz is a cool guy and during one of our conversations I told him my minimum was six words. He looked at me quizzically and I told him the story I just told you. He cracked up at it and loved it. Now, each time he sees me, he points at me and says: “Six words?”

And each time I smile and nod because he’s right. I gotta do six words.

Each time he shows up at the cafe with someone new and he says the phrase, his friend will look at him with curiosity and he’ll urge me to tell the story.

So now I have about four people who, on any given day, will see me and ask me if I’ve done my six words. If I say I have, they usually ask how many more than six I’ve done.

I think what makes this little (if you will) bit is that there really isn’t anything about the content of what I’m writing that comes into question. I’m actually very happy about that. It really helps me because I don’t want to tell people about the story I’m writing in greater detail than a short little summary.

I mean, I barely know where I’m going with the story, I just know that I’m trying to finish it!

The other fun thing about the six words is that it means that, each time I say “yes” to the question, I’ve actually accomplished my goal for that day of getting some words down.

That concept of getting words onto the page has become so important to me because it means that I’m back to doing the thing that I used to love as a kid.

My mother told me that, way back when I was in eighth grade, my teacher told her that if she asks for a sentence, I gave a paragraph; a paragraph, a page; a page, an essay. I even wrote a fan fiction story that was 170,000+ words long.

No, I won’t drop the link to it.

I lost that willingness to write for myself and freely after college. I’ve been pulling my hair trying to get that back. I kept asking myself where at the joy gone? Why didn’t I want to write again?

Surprise surprise, it came from me expecting so much from myself. It came from me demanding perfection on the first try. No one gets it perfect on the first try yet I didn’t apply that to myself.

Stupid? Kinda. But it goes to show my mindset at the time. It was rigid and stubborn and refused to flex. After years of un-learning, I think I’m on a better path.

Here is the best part though, this blog post is part of my six word quota for the day. As this comes to a close I’m far above that word count.

And I loved every moment of it.