I got over myself. For a few minutes, anyway. I figured that since I'd managed to come up with a response to the #reverb10 prompts for 11 days running, I could get past my non-commitment and sign up, for Pete's sake. So now we'll see how committed I stay for the rest of the month.
Establishing a new habit takes how long? 21 days? Once I get past day 31 and start using my own prompts or begin gathering them from new sources, I'd like to keep up the daily, or mostly daily, postings. I've been inspired by my friend Marushka, who took a blog challenge several months ago and has kept it up almost daily ever since.
One of the issues I deal with--and I'm sure I'm not alone in this--is public versus private. Do I really want to air my private thoughts in front of a bunch of faceless strangers? When I write my Morning Pages (as in, Julia Cameron), I let my thoughts flow without restriction. I'm used to writing a bunch of whatever in order to get to something, so I have a hard time editing myself from the start, and that's what posting to my blog feels like. I've spent most of my life editing myself in various ways, so it's probably time to let it go. I mean, really, who cares? And people, faceless strangers and all, would probably rather read genuine rambles rather than edited junk. (See? I just edited myself again.)
The other night I was struck once again by what Francesca says in the letter to her children in the movie The Bridges of Madison County: "It's hard to write this to my own children. I could let this die with the rest of me, I suppose. But as one gets older, one's fears subside. What becomes more and more important is to be known--known for all that you were during this brief stay. How sad it seems to me to leave this earth without those you love the most ever really knowing who you were." Not that my family will ever read my blog or my journals. They'll probably pitch them out with the long underwear. But, I do want to be known to someone. I think we all do. And when we reveal even a hint of our deeper thoughts, others are reassured that they're "not the only ones" who think that way. Or they're challenged by my thoughts. Don't we all need to be challenged on occasion? I know I do.
Another reason/excuse I've had for not posting very often in the past is that I'm usually "written out" by the time I sit down at the computer. I try to do 3 Morning Pages every day and at bedtime I write in a mini journal, where my goal is to sum up the day in a minimum of 3 words. I may skip the longer writing, but I never skip the mini journal. I'm amazed to see how those 3 words have captured the year when I reread all 365 entries at once.
Okay, enough rambling. Time--no, past time--for the Morning Pages. Should have done them first, but, well, you wouldn't be reading this if I had.
1 comment:
Ellen - I couldn't agree more with everything you said about private vs public and the like. I have the same concerns and I know I don't write as freely here as I do in my journal. In fact, I seriously considered taking these prompts private instead of creating a blog. But for one thing, these blogs aren't that widely read (good thing or bad thing?) and also I agree with what you said about wanting to be known and our words assuring others they aren't alone - spoken like a true writer. Keep it up!
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