I joined 

200WAD

intending to write fiction. What got me into it was seeing people like

Tim Subiaco

writing a novella in public and being blown away. I'd never seen such a thing happening in public before and never had considered the possibility. Writing until then I'd always considered a solitary act.

After writing in public for some time now I'm convinced that writing indeed is a solitary act. It's all on you to do the actual writing. Being part of a community makes that immensely easier but at the end of the day it's still on you. You are the boss. Accepting this has been liberating for me recently.

At 200WAD I began strong with the fiction. For a few weeks that's all i wrote really. But as i stuck around the site reading others', some topics would allure me to chime in with a nonfiction post of my own. These posts were usually just hot-takes but they came with an immense amount of

dopamine

. Fiction just got less feedback on the site in general so getting the higher level of feedback for dropping a bomb on an idea or way of thinking felt powerful. 

Over time my writing on 200WAD shifted more and more towards non-fiction and I found it impossible to write fiction, not just on the site itself but anywhere. Eventually though i got it back. The fiction muscle. Very recently actually. Like in the past week or so. Because I admit until I got that muscle back I had been forcing it. Just showing up and writing some drivel in the form of fiction knowing that one day i want to get back into it. 

How'd I get that muscle back though? Well it coincided with the 

Echo and Narcissus

writing club that I just took part in. 


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I've wrote previously about the feelings I got when revisiting my earliest 200WAD posts.

I read some series of posts... short stories I was working on. I could feel exactly what my intentions had been back then. I was hit with two polar but balancing sentiments. Wow I really like this stuff still. It's honest and still resonates with me now and Wow, why didn't I just continue this for the past two years? I could've actually wrote this to a finish... something that I could share rather than a work in progress.