Everyone needs a hobby. Some need more than one.

While I do have the usual what-have-yous that you might expect from your usual millennial (or fine, yes, I am technically Gen-Z) male nowadays–video games, streaming apps, porn (fine, not a hobby), or the occasional Magic: the Gathering sesh (perhaps it’s also not that occasional?), I find myself quite lacking in options that could be a little more productive.

While I don’t consider myself your typical industrious, artsy fellow type—researching different varieties of coffee to brew at home or picking up painting that I can show off on my lackluster Instagram account—I do think of myself as a writer, or at least, I used to.

It was something I picked up during high school so I could justify to myself why I didn’t have to pay attention in class.

I mean—teaching myself how to write is learning, right?

Well, life (and probably ADHD) got in the way. I went to college. I ended up majoring in Advertising Arts because a senior told me it’s just like art class, but way cooler and more mature. I spent the first quarter of my freshman year in Advertising Arts, somehow not connecting that the “advertising” part of the name actually meant advertising, as in the ads I see everywhere. Color me surprised. I thought, “Whoa, hey, they have writers in advertising. I can totally write as my job,” except my dingus brain forgot that I was taking Advertising Arts.

As in the arts.

Specifically, the visual arts.

I am… not very proud of that part. Whatever. I was 17. My brain wasn’t fully developed yet, according to science.

I did manage to take to it, after a fashion, but I didn’t fully give up on writing then, at least not at first. But it did come to a point where I had to make a choice.

See, it was a matter of passion and attention, and the way my brain is wired, I couldn’t completely come around to doing one thing when I’m still fixated on another. I just don’t have the bandwidth to multitask in the direction I wanted to push my life into. My professors kept telling us, whenever we did our plates, to do this or be this (there was a whole lot of this-es.). We have to prepare for our future as art directors, after all. And then there I was, wondering when we would have copywriting classes instead, or maybe just essays instead of plates.

It sounds silly, but it was a confusing time for me because it reached that point where I seriously questioned why I was in that position in the first place. But I digress.

The point here is that somewhere down the line, I completely forgot about writing. It doesn’t help that my ADHD makes it hard to form or organize routines and habits that my body can pick up as second nature. Writing takes a lot of practice. Stephen King said to write at least a thousand words a day. And yes, I totally checked after writing this how many words I managed to clock (it wasn’t a thousand.)

I can’t even remember the last time I properly read a book, and writing without reading feels like trying to make a bowel movement when your tank is empty—it’s all just gas.

So here I am, for the umpteenth time, giving myself an ultimatum.

Write. Just do it.

Don’t even think about what topic to write about, jackass.

I’m challenging myself to write something every day until my birthday, which is about 3 months from now (January 22). To police myself, and to add a little more pressure, I have also decided to start posting these online. I’m not yet sure how, because I’m a dinosaur and I’m cheap.

WordPress is expensive, guys. I have other urgent expenses, like 2.5 x 3.5” colorful pieces of cardboard with the words Magic: The Gathering on the back.

Meh. That will be a problem for a different day.

(P.S. Yes, I finally got a blog. Yes, it’s this one. You’re reading it right here. Hooray.)