Every daily starts the same: something hits me during the day and becomes obvious. Free flow. Check the character count. Add if there’s room. Cut harshly if there isn’t. When it’s still too long, grammar gets compromised. Key words that aren’t key enough get dropped. Punctuation gets altered, chipped, until the number cooperates.
This is not casual. Writing every daily requires concentration, diligence, and real craft. Twitter had 140 characters. Some writers did very short stories — complete narratives in 140 characters. I was envious and tried. Portal allows 1,500. Different scale, same idea: within the limitation, deliver a complete arc.
Dailies subject line, chosen carefully — understandable at first glance, but only fully revealed after reading the body. It means more after than before.
No pronouns when writing about the primary reader. Not style — strategy. The intended reader is known. Full attention cannot be counted on — skimming is reality. Dailies, written for the ether: complete whether or not it’s fully read, with Easter eggs dropped. A message in a bottle. Sending, followed by hope.
Each daily stands alone. not a journal entry, not quite a blog post, but something in between that doesn’t have a name yet. Over time, read together, there’s a thread. They’re all me — things seen, felt, wanted known.
Some good ones: never sent. Life interrupts. Filed “unsent dailies.” Sometimes urgency wins: send happens 12:01. I pour heart into every one. Every single one.
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