I feel like writing more about the nature of persistence, because “persistence” is a quality I feel like I’m badly missing right now. I struggled a few days ago with the idea of writing, writing, writing despite my desire to take a day off, but I think today is actually the day where it’s the hardest.

I don’t know why, either. I actually had more time today to write; I actually thought of a few ideas that could have served as sparks about which to write. Some were actually halfway decent.

Every time I thought of something – “Gee, I should write that” – I just couldn’t muster the energy to actually sit down and write. I guess “energy” is not the right word – I had the energy, I just didn’t have the will to sit down and commit the time to actually writing the idea, trying to flesh it out beyond a seed of an idea.

I’m still there. I’m just writing because I have a streak going, and I don’t want to lose the streak. I keep track of it with a community of fellow writers, you know, and I hate to let them down – even figuratively – by breaking my own streak and commitment.

I could always lie, of course. I could record that I had written something, and just not include a url – most of the writers don’t publish daily like I do. But I do publish daily, and I don’t lie. Part of my commitment to the challenge is to publish every day, and publish the url, so I have the accountability to myself and to my fellow writers.

But it’s very hard. I almost chose to break the streak through ennui, which would have been honest but … I value that streak. I value the idea that I’m making it through. I value the idea that I might actually make my streak – even if my recorded streak isn’t as long as my actual streak. (I signed up for the community after I’d started writing every day, and I missed recording a day, even though I’d published.)

So I’m not happy with what I’m writing right now – it seems paltry and weak, uninspired and uninspiring. I’m sorry, whoever is reading this. I’m trying to reach deep within to forge a sense of will, such that I’m forcing myself to write, and as a result, what I’m writing is crap.

Can’t be helped. I just don’t think I have anything better in me right now. What I want to do is sleep; what I’m doing is sitting at a keyboard, trying to spit out words the best I can.

And I have seventy words left to go. I’m tempted to use a pulp writer’s trick, and use a word over and over again (and over and over again) to build up word counts. Is that cheating?

Probably.