So, a few weeks ago I discovered Spirit City: Lofi Sessions on Steam. It was not a game, but rather a gamified productivity program. I hate that description. It sounds soulless and corporate. What Spirit City is, instead, is a chill background environment. It doesn't have to be productive. You don't have to be productive. However, as a result of it, I have been productive.
For decades, I've struggled to build a writing habit. Every now and again starting somewhere around 2007 or so, I've tried to start writing every day. In 2010, I joined a website called 750 Words with this intention. I was hoping it might help me build that habit. However, it never clicked for me... at least, not until after I bought Spirit City, and a couple other things happened.
This winter past, I read a book called How to Write a Lot. It was meant for professors and grad students who need to write research papers. The thing that stuck with me, though, was that the primary advice of the author was just "set a writing time every day, and every day, write during that time."
A couple weeks ago, my classes for the semester ended. And I decided to dust off 750 Words after I saw someone else mention the site in passing. I'd had Spirit City for a couple days at that point, and I thought hey, why not run that alongside 750 Words? So that day, I had this calm background environment going, and I just wrote. I didn't really worry about hitting 750 words, since the website doesn't force you to do that, and I really just wanted to stretch metaphorical muscles.
It felt great, and really peaceful. So, the next day, I did it again... coincidentally, at the same time of day. And the next day. And the next day.
After awhile, it just became a natural part of my morning. So now, almost three weeks later, I have the daily writing habit that I always wanted. But that's not the end of the story.
See, while this habit was becoming engrained in me, I was also seeing a lot of people writing about what AI is doing to people's creativity. There's a big backlash against AI among creatives, and that's been going on for awhile. What was surprising to me, though, was that there's a growing number of people who are intentionally building imperfect things. They are doing this to distance themselves from AI, and also to celebrate the imperfection inherent in human creation. And this is beautiful.
So, now I've not only built a new creative habit, but I've also given myself permission to post things that haven't been polished to a fine sheen. It seems not only acceptable but even encouraged to be imperfect, and that helps my comfort level immensely.
So think about that for a minute. You don't need to create perfect things. You don't need to even finish them. The imperfect, and the unfinished, and yes, the ugly, are all wonderful, human-crafted, beautiful things.