When I started writing last year, I decided on a schedule of topics for specific days of the week and then expanded as time passed by. Here’s how it was in June:

• Monday: Writing (For yourself or others)
• Tuesday: Language Learning Related
• Wednesday: 4-character expressions in Japanese (on my blog exclusively)
• Thursday: Ainu Lesson (on my blog exclusively)
• Friday: Burmese Lesson (on my blog exclusively)
• Saturday: Self-Improvement
• Sunday: Self-Improvement or Language-related

In July, I realized my Ainu lessons were just translated versions of the Japanese podcast lesson I was making and it wasn’t training me to become a better writer so I took the decision to stop writing about it and switched to self-improvement or language-related articles.

It was a difficult but good decision as it allowed me to have more articles based on creativity each week.

I then decided I wouldn’t make any change for the rest of the year but, lo and behold, I have been considering doing it again for the past month or so.

This time, it would be changing the article about writing to another topic.

The reason behind this is that I feel I have been running out of ideas and it feels like I have been, again and again, writing about the same old things such as schedule, difficulties and advantages of writing and, quite ironically, finding ideas.

Yet, my 1-year challenge of writing one post a day will come to a close on December 31st and that means I have, including this article, only 7 left. Two of which will be my common monthly review.

That leaves 4.

But I just realized how positive it would be to not give up before my final deadline despite those articles almost never getting traction.

I am stubborn

And for this simple reason, giving up is already a hassle. It makes me feel bad about myself and going against what common sense would mean has always made me feel alive. I usually feel that sort of:

The world doesn’t understand what I am doing yet.

I like to believe I am just a bit “ahead of my time” even though most of the time it’s just a matter of me not being willing to accept reality.

Failure is positive

In general, we all need to accept failure, learn from it and move on with our lives. It’s easier said than done but it’s a fact we are all aware of now.

Luckily, the more stubborn you are, the more you find yourself confronted with failures.

By going against the tide, you often find yourself failing and as a stubborn person, I have lived through this many times.

Does it feel good? No. Obviously it doesn’t.

But it also makes me a better person. For the next time.

Being a “failing” writer

Luckily, there isn’t really such a thing as a “failing” writer. There is only a writer who hasn’t found his niche or one who hasn’t gotten good enough.

In such cases, what we need is to keep going, practice and experiment more with our craft to find what truly clicks.

Creativity finds stubborn writers

Now here’s the real kicker: writers who succeed are the ones who have pushed through all the troubles and never given up, even when all seemed to point away from success.

Pushing through with a story seemingly without an ending, an article that started with a one-word idea, or even a series for which you don’t have the next part in mind at all, are all crucial sparks.

What those sparks do is push your creativity to its limits to write that next sentence, then a paragraph, a page and so on.

Despite running out of ideas for topics about writing, I find myself here, writing one more article. And then, I will continue to push my creativity to its outer limit to find more and more to write about.

Who knows, I might unlock the next creativity level for myself and realize I had been subconsciously ignoring a whole new interesting sub-topic!