October 1. Another new day, another new month. Today is the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It’s a month of writing a blog post a day and posting it on the Challenge page, reading 2 others or more and commenting on their posts. It’s an opportunity to meet and interact with other bloggers and supporting each other. I see many new as well as familiar names.
My main goals for this challenge is to show up each day and to enjoy and learn from the process. I do not have a business to promote. I have no products or service to sell. An online friend, Tom Fisher, introduced me to the world of blogging many years ago. I started on Blogger in 2005 and switched to WordPress in 2012. I’ve been blogging on and off since. I love how photographs and words come together. One can say a photo is worth a thousand words. In the same way a word can tigger a kaleidoscope of pictures.
I hope my keyboard will be magical this month and help me get through the challlenge with flying colours. It’s easy to get stuck. A month can be a long time. I am wishing myself and fellow challengers luck. May we see each other at the finish line.
I wonder when the sun will come out again. Will it rain again? Our earth is very dry and thirsty. It’s hard to be hopeful in today’s climate. I envy the toddlers toddling about, laughing and jabbering, impervious to the clouds and the cool. When did we lose this ability? Can we get it back? And how do we go about it, if we can?
I am not holding my breath, waiting for answers. I’m feeling a little stuck again. I don’t want to stay there. I do the dishes. I warm up our lunch. We eat. I do the dishes again. I hang up the laundry. I potted up the snowpeas I’ve germinated for the community garden – all 100 of them. While they continue their germination journey in the potting soil, I will gather my strength and plan how to plant our plot for its best and possible last year there. It’s time to do a little downsizing for our advancing years.
Downsizing is no small thing. It’s a big challenge. When I was young, the house and yard were never too big even though there was only one of me. Now that there are 2 of us, it’s enough. I am older and not craving more of everything. We could do with less. It would mean less space to clean and less space to collect stuff we don’t need. We have what we have in space but we don’t have to keep all the stuff.
Ridding what we don’t need is not an easy thing. It is a slow process for me but I did start today with some of my mother’s stuff. The thing to do is not to handle, examine too much. Bag them up quickly with no hesitation. Otherwise, memories and attachment form. I almost hung on to 2 pairs of mom’s shoes by trying them on. They fit and look almost new. Then I remember I already have too many shoes. I quickly put them back in the box and into the bag with her 2 purses.
It’s another day or what is left of it. I feel as if I’ve lost and squandered most of today. I did not meditate nor journal this morning. Instead I was scrolling through the many shared Jan Arden’s video on Alberta’s want to separate from Canada. The many comments slamming Jan was not good for my spirit. It coloured my day and did not help my already tired body and soul.
I am afraid I was a sad sack though I try not to show or dwell on it. I pushed through it with physical activity. Now I’m trying to be kind to myself. Chocolate cake does help. I remind myself that I am just a human being, flawed and complaining all the while. It’s hard to suffer in silence.
Another cloudy and windy day. On top of that there’s smoke from forest fires in Manitoba. It’s easy to feel anxious and uneasy. Life goes on. Still no rain. I take a tylenol and sip my coffee. The thing about having a greenhouse is you have to tend it whether you feel like it or not. The lettuce and spinach are going great guns. I harvest some for a friend. The snowpeas are pea-ing but not quite ready yet. I watered the seedlings still waiting to be planted out. Chores keep me moving out of my morose mood and thoughts.
I am not in the best of forms. I won’t for a long while yet but I can strive to do my best even on my worse days. The earth continues to turn on its axis, the sun still rises in the east and set in the west. I must do my part of putting one foot in front of the other and be with what is. That is the way for me to move forward. So I take deep breaths, sip my coffee/tea, tap on the keyboard and sigh alot. I step out the door into the world. I have to keep up or I shall be left behind. I get lost. I keep going and I found my way after awhile.
Another day is almost done. I haven’t drawn my teacup yet. I’ve spent time with friends in the morning. In the afternoon my sister and I took our father to the Berry Barn for coffee. The weather was not the best but we made the best of it. We wandered through the greenhouse before heading to the Barn for coffee and Saskatoon berry pie. It was a wonderful day and afternoon outing despite the weather and inspite of my mood.
October mornings are so beautiful once the sun has roused and shined her light upon us. I’m feeling at ease, basking in the sun’s warmth, tapping on my keyboard and sipping my second cup of tea. I love this morning ritual. A friend had introduced me to blogging in 2010. I started out at Blogger, posting photos and a few blurbs. It was a struggle as I was a late comer to the computer and the digital world. I was still lugging a camera with film when school kids had cell phones with cameras. It was frustrating but fun learning. I abandoned Blogger and my blog for a couple of years. Then I found WordPress, an easier fit for me.
I’ve created this writing space at the end of May 2012 – 10 years and 4 months ago when blogging was a rage. I’ve been writing, writing and still writing since, falling off now and again. I wrote flash fiction for Friday Fictioneers for a couple of years. It was a great supportive community for learning. I wrote fiction of 100 words. It suited me well. And checking back this morning, I’ve been doing the Ultimate Blog Challenge as early as April, 2014. I can remember missing just one challlenge – this past July. I guess I do have discipline and staying power.
In the beginning I had a lofty goal of writing a thousand words a day, hence the name of my blog. I dream of writing that great Chinese Canadian novel. I joined NaNoWriMo a couple of times. I soon discovered that it was all beyond me. I haven’t ever made the 1000 words at a single write yet. I am not crushed. I’ve come to my senses and just write – a sentence, a paragraph, whatever I am capable at the time. I’ve come back to my first goal – to write for the joy of it. I am not competitive but I can get hooked into it sometimes. I am paying attention, focusing on my first goal, not getting distracted, write, share and read at least the 2 must posts.
I am sure that for every problem there is an answer. I am feeling not copacetic this morning. You know how it is – morning fatigue, irritation, grumpiness, I need coffee but can’t have it anymore. Call it what you wish.
Sheba is being annoying, barking up a storm every time the two little Chihuahuas next door poke their fuzzy white heads out on the deck. I should not have named her after a queen. She sure is acting like one!
How am I suppose to get creative and come up with my 500 words in this state? The Lord must have heard me. When I opened up Facebook, the first thing I saw was from Canada Writes on:
How timely and appropriate! It is just what I need to get going this morning. I, too, love art and had hopes of becoming an artist. I majored in Fine Arts and English my first year in University. I had no work discipline and gave up on the art after a year. My thought was if I had talent, I wouldn’t have to work at it. I could whip up masterpieces just like that. So why waste time in something that I can’t excel and make money at? I was listening to the voices of reason.
The next year, I dropped out of university altogether. I had a history of being a quitter. When the going got tough, I was missing in action. I am trying to do better now. I am working hard, staying in the mental and physical discomfort of pushing for a little more each day.
When I read some of the winners’ stories on Canada Writes, I think to myself: I have no hope in hell! But then I tell myself to move on. If I stay in that thought, I will never accomplish anything. I have to keep writing to get better. I write because I love words and ideas. I am not doing it to win at anything. And I can’t measure myself up against others. We all have our unique styles and words.
I am going to heed the Jealous Curator’s advice on being stuck. Maybe you will find it useful, too. Here it is:
The Jealous Curator’s 3-part creative block exterminator
1. Time. Allow yourself time to be blocked. It happens, and yes, it will pass. It always does, but you can speed things up with ingredients 2 and 3.
2. Humour. Don’t take it so seriously. Most of the pros have a really light view on their inner critics and blocks in general. If you can laugh, and cut yourself some slack, the blocks seem to fade a lot faster!
3. Side projects. So, so, so many of the artists suggested doing little side projects to help shake yourself out of a rut. In fact, all 50 of them gave an “unblocking project” at the end of their interviews. They’re so good! (I’ve tried about five of them so far.)
It’s the morning after the writing workshop with Alice Kuipers.
Yesterday after returning, I was pumped. I made plans for a feasible writing practice. I had set goals for next week, next month, the next 6 months and for the next year. I was going to write at least 500 words/day, gradually increasing it to 1000 words/day. I would make a start on my memoir. I’ve been wishing about doing it forever with nothing to show except TALK.
I am here, in front of my keyboard. The pump is dry and my drive is already gone. I am tired, feeling my usual morning ho, ho hum. I feel no burning desire. How quickly it disappears! Where are the words? Where the heck did they go? I could easily give up but I won’t. I’m learning the rah, rah of hype carries you not far. Results are really about the hard work of drudgery. It’s one slow word after another on an empty page.
How am I going to write the 500 words today, never mind now the 1000 words/day next week? That is the intent of this blog, to write 1000 words a day. Hence the name onethousandandtwo, onethousand and onethousandandone having already been taken. So far, I’ve been a miserable failure, falling quite short of even 500 words most days for 2 years.
I am trying now. I gave up too easily in the past, being satisfied with accomplishing a post a day. It was not a small accomplishment. But it was not what I had set out to do. I gave up too easily and too soon. I did not PUSH myself to write more words daily. I tried to justify that by writing every day and with content. Of course that mattered but when I didn’t push, I did not move ahead. I always worked hard, but seldom pushed beyond the comfort zone.
I am happy with the content in my writing. The goal of doing an archeological dig of my life is a running theme in my writing. I know myself better now. I am peeling back the layers I have developed over the years. I am a daughter, a nurse, a caretaker, a pleaser…..I have lost count of the roles/layers. I have been unconscious that I have a self. It’s like putting on a different uniform every day to deal with the life I think I SHOULD live. After awhile, there are too many uniforms/layers/skins to remove.
I lost myself for awhile a long time. I was buried beneath the piles of costumes and masks I wore. I had never considered myself an actress. Now I see that I had been a very good one. The world is a stage. Life is a show that must go on. Every morning I woke up, got up and put on my uniform and performed. Remember the Bugs Bunny theme? Yes, I knew my parts and lines by heart. No rehearsing necessary. “On with the show. This is it.”
I still have my piles of nursing uniforms. It’s time to let go of them and put on my writing habit. It’s time to do what I LOVE. I shall set out an inkwell and quill for inspiration. I will sing and hum and let my fingers ripple across the keyboard. The world is a stage for the life I WANT to create. The page is for the stories I have to tell. It is all up to me.
Image from Google.ca
On with the show. This is it. Gather around. I have stories to tell.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Who owns the comment section: the blog writer or the blog readers?
It’s Tuesday. It’s sunny and warm. I am tired and cranky. Sheba is underfoot. Do I have anything to say about the above prompt?
In the real world, we own are responsible for whatever we do or say. But what about in Blogsville or FaceBook or other social media? That’s a little tougher.
I don’t have any rules about commenting. I rely on WordPress to do its thing about filtering spams, etc. I’m not quite up on the ins and outs of all this stuff even though I’ve been blogging for over a year.
So far, I haven’t attracted a lot of traffic, followers or comments. But I am happy with what I have. I appreciate my readers, their likes and comments. So far I haven’t angered or offended anyone. But then what I blog about doesn’t generate those kinds of responses.
However, I have been in an email group where people do get their emotions aroused over politics, religion and sometimes nothing. The exchange could get personal and nasty, even though there was a rule about the delete button. In the end I and many others had to leave the group.
In light of the experience, I say whoever has control of the delete button ( the writer) owns the comment section. I appreciate comments that help me to become a better writer. I appreciate respectful differences of opinion. But I do not want to be viciously and personally attacked. If I can wiggle my nose and push the delete button and pooof, I would do it! Wouldn’t you?
onethousandandtwo 