Writing a blog has been something I've toyed with for a while. I've even made a few false starts, and who knows, this may be yet another. But I want this time to be different, and I've got some thoughts on a strategy to make this time different, beginning with really defining my goals for blogging. Here's the "why" behind PLANNED spontaneity:
1. I want to document my journey. I'll be the first to admit that my life isn't really all that exciting or interesting, but it's mine and I want to enjoy it, make it meaningful to those I share it with, and actually notice it. Am I the only one that feels like I look up and years have gone by without my noticing them? I want a place to celebrate the little things, acknowledge the set backs, and slowly compile the big picture through a montage of little ones. I love to organize facts and data, and I'm realizing that I have very little information about the subject I am most frequently having to deal with: ME! What we do for a living may not define who we are, but I do think how we consistently choose to spend our time does, so this process is partly about discovering who I am through that lens. 2. I want to write. I have a love/hate relationship with writing. I really do enjoy it but for some reason writing for me is a little like trying to wring my soul out onto paper. Even writing about mundane things leaves me feeling exhausted. Still, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I finally do finish my work and I'm proud of my efforts when I do my best. I will even confess that somewhere deep in the archives of my dreams and ambitions, I have always wanted to write a book. I have no idea what I'd even write about, but certainly an important first step has to be a willingness to write, so that's what I'm hoping to cultivate here. It might not be a lengthy list, but it gives me some foundations to build on and some guidelines to follow just in case I get a little sidetracked along the way or derailed by the two excuses I've caught myself using most frequently to avoid blogging: I'm too busy. Some days I feel like I go nowhere at 100mph; I know that I am so busy I can't find time to sleep, but in reflecting I can't for the life of me tell you what I'm doing to keep myself so busy. As stated, a big blogging motivator is the hope that this will slow me down to notice, think about, and document some of those little moments of truly living that seem to get lost in the craziness of life. However, it's a fine balance between being too busy to write and having writing simply become one more act of busy-ness. One way to deflate this excuse is to set realistic writing goals. It keeps me accountable to follow through, without setting unreasonable expectations that will only frustrate me in the end. For now, I think two posts a month would be just right. I have nothing to write about. I think in my past attempts at blogging, I had an expectation that I was writing for other people, so there was a pressure to come up with some great idea or clever turn of phrase. I wanted my words to change the world, or at least help change the color of someone's walls (it was a diy blog). There was also disappointment when I didn't become an overnight success. (It is a major fault of mine to expect to be an instant success at the things I do and, worse, to avoid things that I'm not immediately good at. Another major flaw is my tendency to use a lot of parenthetical commentary in my writing, but eventually you get used to it.) Part of the benefit of defining my goals for writing is realizing that I am writing for me. It's public as a form of accountability - both to actually write as well as to encourage some quality control of the content - but this is really just my digital scrapbook and as such, I write about what is important to me whether anyone else is interested or not. I'm sure that this list will get updated a dozen times in the course of this journey, but for now, it's a great beginning.
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About Me"Planned Spontaneity" is an expression I came up with to describe my unique personality: I love schedules, organization, and all things planning ...yet there are times when I make a conscious decision to just go with the flow and see what happens. This is the documentation of my crazy journey - which may feature a 6-page agenda one minute, and the next I drop everything to give my walls a fresh new coat of paint. Archives
December 2016
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