Day 1: Little Rituals | 28 x 20
It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives
YOU’RE HERE. I’M SO GLAD. Welcome to Day 1 of 28 x 20 and thank you for getting into this. I see you showing up.
I started thinking about how I want to show up for 20 minutes of daily writing this month. I involuntarily imagined two Doberman Pinschers guarding the door to my office. There is no door to my office, because my office is an area of my home, because my home is a 420-square foot studio apartment, but I have a real active imaginary inner life so it mostly works out okay.
The dobermans’ rich oiled coats are made of candy and they tell me that when the timer goes off, I’ll get a treat, even if all I do is sit and stay. They’re guarding me from letting the treachery of the world get in the way of writing my true shorties. They’re reminding me to be unbothered, for the time being, by the threat of distraction. Also, I think they’re the dogs from Magnum P.I. (I guess I’m Higgins in this scenario?), and they respond to 36 unspoken commands.
“To write short nonfiction requires an alertness to detail, a quickening of the senses… until one has magnified some small aspect of what it means to be human.” - Bernard Cooper
The distractions haven’t gone anywhere. They are not going anywhere. So, we are going to guard our daily 20 minutes like our life (or our February) depends on it.
We’re shrinking everything down into manageable bites. Forget what you think you should write, what you’ve been trying to write, been told to write. Forget what you can’t figure out. Not a writer? Forget it. Bestselling writer? Who cares? No stakes. No attachment to outcomes. Set your Passion Planner on fire because we are going somewhere else now.
Maybe we can let 28 x 20 be something we don’t worry about.
Before we get to the prompt, here’s some practical guidance:
Put your phone somewhere out of reach. It can wait. If you’re using the timer on your phone, turn on Do Not Disturb.
The 20-minute timer is super important, especially in the beginning. It’ll help keep you focused. Someone somewhere said it’s “enough time to enter the cave and come back out relatively unscathed.”
Go for 150 to around 800 words. Don’t let word count derail you.
Write the first thing that comes to mind. Let it take you wherever it wants to go.
Try to keep your hand moving, whether you’re typing or writing by hand.
If you get stuck, don’t fret. Relax your shoulders. Take a breath.
If you feel like you can’t go any further, keep going.
