21 DAYS

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle

They say it takes 21 days to develop a habit. Why 21 days, 3 full weeks? Can a habit not be formed in 20 days? Do some habits take 30 days? Oh, well let’s stick with the 21 days.

Starting tomorrow, I am going to commit to developing two habits. Wait! Does this ruin the math? Can two habits be learned alongside each other over the same 21 days? Who knows, but let’s find out.

I say again, starting tomorrow, I am going to commit to developing two habits. First, 21 consecutive days of writing. Second, 21 days of photography.

It is often said that the best way to develop your writing skills is to…write. I heard this mantra in a podcast episode of Great Escape Radio again just today. Why develop a writing habit, you may ask. Well, I am working to hone my writing skills as it is central to my goal to become a working adventurer.

I want to be able to write compelling articles about travelling the world in the 48’ wooden troller yacht I am currently building in my backyard. Writing about living life onboard a boat, about the destinations just waiting to be explored, about the beauty of the sea and the life that lives within it, and about the impact climate change is having on the ocean environment. Life, travel, nature, climate change. There are enough paying magazines and sites to submit pitches about these topics I should think.

For the same reasons, I seek to perfect my photography skills. A picture is worth a thousand words. However, when pitching editors, a picture is worth the required word count of the article it will be supporting, be it 500, 1000 or 4000 words.

Photography is all about light and capturing your subject with the right amount of light reflecting off of it and into the lens. Taking a picture is one skill, but in a digital era, processing the image with software is a completely different skill. Selecting the best amount of blacks, shadows, mediums, whites and highlights is what makes a picture pop.

Down the road, photography will expand into drone photography to be able to capture stunning pictures and videos of rugged coastlines, sun-drenched beaches, beautiful ports and with luck, pods of dolphins or whales. Another environment to explore with imagery is underwater. Even a bed of sargassum weed provides a stellar backdrop for marine life.

My ground rules. The photography doesn’t have to match with the writing, though it can. It has to be of something out in nature, no pictures of the boat I am building. Also, it has to take into consideration the ‘expose to the right’ principle. The writing can be on any subject but has to conform to the 500-word limit I have set for my Medium posts. Have a writing prompt for me? Jot it down in the comments.