Tag: writing

Almost Famous

My thirteen year old reading my blog on his iPad.
Joe reading my blog on his iPad.

The other night, my sister stayed with our sons so hubby and I could attend a theater performance. Now that our boys are older, we get out quite a bit more than we used to. Usually, though, we are gone just for a couple of hours and remain completely accessible by text, phone, or Facetime. Our sons often avoid talking to us when we’re out for short periods of time. They’re too busy enjoying their Xbox or iPads without complaints about too much screen time. When we got to the theater, I turned off my phone, completely comfortable knowing the boys were in my sister’s capable hands, and settled in to enjoy an uninterrupted bit of culture.

After the play was over, I checked my phone just in case. There were four texts and a few notifications on my blog. Two of the texts were from my sister. Apparently Luke’s stomach gave him some trouble so he sacrificed most of his dinner to the toilet. “Too much food” was his excuse. (It’s taken me years, but I’ve gotten my children mostly trained to throw up for other people and not me.) Not surprisingly, the last two texts were from Joe inquiring when we would be home. It takes about three hours’ worth of time before our sons finally notice we’re missing. Once we pass the three-hour mark, Joe begins badgering us relentlessly via any electronic means possible. I expected that on the drive we would receive at least 5 additional text messages (it turned out to be 6) and possibly a request for a Facetime chat. It was nearly 11, and we’d been gone for about 6 hours already. He was tired and stubbornly refusing to fall asleep until we were there. We made a hasty exit and headed home.

I decided to check my blog comments in the car. Turns out one of the comments was on my Contact page. It was from Joe. It simply read, “Hi Mom,” which really cracked me up because this was a new and completely unanticipated way for him to contact me in my absence. My sons have known about my web page for years, but neither of them has ever really shown much of an interest in it. They just know that I write, often about them. I had told them what it was called, and Joe simply looked it up. I was shocked that he’d remembered the title and gotten a wild hair to check on it. This was a first.

When we finally got home, I checked on Luke. He was feeling better and having a snack to make up for his lost dinner. My sister had already crashed out for the night. I found Joe sitting on his bunk bed with his iPad.

“I saw your comment on my blog page,” I said.

“Yeah. I was reading it tonight,” he replied.

“I didn’t know you read my blog.”

“I just started,” he said. “I read the one about Safety Dad when Dad and Mr. Jeff went snowshoeing on Mt. Evans.”

My mind thought back to when I wrote that. It had to have been one of the first entries on this blog. He’d started in the archives. He was working his way through them. My heart was full.

“You’re a good writer, Mom. Some of those are pretty funny.”

I couldn’t decide what to be happier about…the knowledge that my son had actively sought out something I had written or the notion that he had actually appreciated it and me.

This is the most important comment I have ever received.
This is the most important comment I have ever received.

Yesterday I caught him going through my blog again. This time he asked me how he could put a comment on one, so I showed him. I know he’s reading them trying to find posts written about him or his brother. Sooner or later, he’s going to find a couple that I am sure he will protest. He is a teenager and having a mom who is a writer can leave you feeling a bit exposed. When that happens, I’ll show him a couple posts where I embarrassed myself and prove that no one, not even me, escapes the occasional embarrassment. Then I’ll use the opportunity to teach him about poetic license and the First Amendment. In the meantime, I am so honored that he is using his free time to find out more about what I do.

I often say that I write for myself. And this is absolutely true. I use my web page to keep myself accountable. If I know I need to publish something, it diminishes my myriad excuses for not writing. I never started out writing with a plan to build an actual readership. I never truly figured anyone would read it. I simply shared it so I would have the impetus to continue writing. Every single time someone follows my blog, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. I never felt my blog was important until this weekend. With my readership increased by this one special person, I feel almost famous.

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

My Mary-Shelley Monster

The calm before the non-creative storm
The calm before the non-creative storm

By chance today, I came across this comment on an old blog I had written: “You are such a talented writer.” It made me giggle a little. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a sweet compliment, and one I know that the issuer meant sincerely, but I don’t think of writing as a talent. Writing is work. It’s something I’ve been working on since I was 12. You have to find your voice and your style. You have to understand how to tell a story. There’s the whole sentence structure piece, the one that I have spent years tinkering with and studying. You need a strong command of your native language or, at the very least, a handy dictionary. A prodigious vocabulary is helpful, but so is a thesaurus. Of course, there are the small matters of spelling, grammar, and punctuation. You also can’t downplay the importance being a good editor plays in being an effective writer. And, after all that, you’ve still got proofreading. Don’t get me started on proofreading and what a bear that is at midnight when you’ve been up for 18 hours and are so tired you can hardly see straight. Writing has next to nothing to do with talent. It has to do with arduous, tedious, unending work that stems from an inexplicable addiction to written communication.

I’ve spent a great deal of time learning how to spin an insignificant event into a meaningful message, a crazy anecdote into a tall tale, and a cautionary tale into a public service announcement. On my best days, I can take a quiet moment between my son and I and transform it into a thousand-word love story. The fun of being a writer is that you can tell whatever story you want. You can be creative, embellish, and turn mundane fact into hysterical fiction. You can reduce the static and make your crazy life seem normal and beautiful. It is a skill I work on nearly every time I write a blog post because real life is not always flattering or interesting. Some days are simply not pretty and I am not at the top of my game. Some days I am overwrought and overtired and only the ugly truth of my day comes out. It looks a little like this:

I woke up at 6:30 when my Fitbit vibrated on my wrist. Because our whole-house fan and run all night, I decided it was too cold to get out of bed until 7:25. At 7:28, I began to stress a bit because I had to be out of the house in 20 minutes with two boys dressed, fed, and ready for school and I hadn’t even walked downstairs yet. I skipped unloading the dishwasher so I could make lunches while the boys brushed teeth, combed their hair, and got their shoes on. Six minutes before we needed to leave I told Luke to eat a banana or a yogurt because there was no time for the usual eggs. We got to school five minutes later than we should have. I had the dog in the car so I took her for her requisite 3-mile, 40-minute walk around the lake at the park. Then I hit the library to return a book with a hold on it. Afterward I drove home where I spent the next 4 hours doing laundry, ironing, making two homemade banana breads, vacuuming, hauling an old armchair out to the garage, cleaning the basement, doing dishes, and unloading the dishwasher I had skipped earlier. Eventually I got a shower and made a smoothie for lunch. Then it was off to Goodwill to drop off two huge bags of clothes heavy enough that the collection guy asked if I had dead bodies in them. Picked up the boys, cooked two dinners (because the boys won’t eat lentils), cleaned up dishes, and went back upstairs to do some more ironing while watching Parks and Rec. Discovered one son sitting in a laundry basket lined with blankets while wearing no pants. Who knows why? Confronted the other son for walking in the hallway naked (what is it with naked people in my house?) and threatened, quite realistically, to publish a blog about it. At approximately 9:45 I lost it because I had been going non-stop all day and had no idea what to write about. Barked at my sons to go to sleep, tucked them in anyway, yawned on the way back to my room, and then said screw it to writing because I was tired. Then I picked up my laptop and started writing anyway because that’s what writers do. Oh. And I also killed two spiders today.

You still awake?

My writing is not about talent. It’s about self-management. It’s putting just enough of myself out there to be real but not so much that I’m too real. It’s also about knowing when to shut up and exit stage left. It’s akin to being Dr. Frankenstein, breathing life into the lifeless and then acknowledging 821 words in that perhaps I need a timely escape from my wayward monster. An ice floe in the Arctic might be just the thing. If I leave now, I should be able to make it by morning.

Posted on by Me 3

The Daily Pearls

Being a wise bunny and soaking up the moment with some sea lions in the Galapagos Islands.
Here I am being a wise bunny and soaking up the moment with some sea lions in the Galapagos Islands.

 

As the time ticked by this evening and I was watching the Colorado Avalanche lose game 6 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I knew that writing tonight would be damn near impossible. I was distracted and I could not think of a thing to say. I’d pretty much resolved to call it a night and put off writing until tomorrow when I came across this little Bunny Buddhism gem in my book:

The wise bunny knows there is no tomorrow, only a string of todays.

Well, crap. That’s a wrinkle in my procrastination plans.

I try to remind myself of life’s fleeting nature. I try not to take anything for granted. I get out of the car every morning at school drop off to give my boys a hug and a kiss. They hate it. On some days, they tear out of the car and I have to chase them across the lawn in front of the building to do it, catching them by their backpacks and kissing them on their heads in front of their teachers and friends and embarrassing the living hell out of them, but I make sure I am never in too much of a rush to miss the opportunity. I may only have today to show them how much I love them. It’s worth the full-scale sprint in my yoga pants in front of the carpool parents because you just never know. I live 6.5 miles from Columbine High School. My heart is engraved with unexpected loss.

I seriously doubt that overnight a full-scale invasion by a malevolent alien race will kill my chances for writing tomorrow. I also doubt that I will die quietly in my sleep (knock on wood), which would certainly render it more difficult for me to compose anything on WordPress tomorrow. (There might be a story idea in there, though, about zombie writers.) In all likelihood, there will be time for me to write later because I will wake up tomorrow, chase my kids down at school, and return home to my laptop refreshed and hopefully with something clever or at least vaguely interesting to say. But, just in case, I will put these words down now as an insurance policy because I understand that no one is guaranteed a tomorrow. If you spend too much time counting on future moments, you fritter away the ones that are happening now. There’s always time in the present. Recognize it’s there and make the most of it. Today is as good as it gets, people. Each day is a pearl on a string. If you’re lucky, one day you’ll have a magnificent strand.

 

 

 

Posted on by Me

I’m Not Coyote Chow

A bunny I saw on my morning walk. I see bunnies everywhere all of a sudden.
A bunny I saw on my morning walk. It was not thinking.

I’ve been sitting here for the past hour or so desperately trying to come up with something to write about. I flipped through all the tabs I set up in the Bunny Buddhism book, twice, looking for inspiration in the words that had touched me a couple days ago. I found none. The clock was banging away the minutes to midnight, and I was no closer to a theme for today’s entry. I was becoming increasingly stressed out about my impending failure a mere two days into my renewed pledge to write daily. I was just about to give up and write it off (at least I could write something that way) as being overtired when my eyes landed upon this quote on a page I had not marked:

It is better to hop than to think of hopping.

Well, crap. There it is in a nutshell. My problem. You see, I am a great thinker. I’m not exaggerating. I am really great at thinking. It’s my favorite thing to do. I’m curious and intellectually open-minded, happy to accept the world for all its grey matter (and not the black and white that others imagine exists). The problem is that sometimes I spend so much time trapped in my skull, thinking, weighing options, and organizing mental tidbits, that I run out of time to do something. In this way, I am perpetually paralyzed…too tangled in thought simply to be a human being and too overwhelmed by possibility to be a human doing. I am frozen and worthless.

I need to blow up today’s quote to poster size and mount to the wall in my office. Sometimes the best thing to do is tell the chattering monkeys in my mind to shut the hell up and then start hopping forward. I can worry about the quality of my written work after I’ve actually written something down. So just like the zoo keepers in Kansas City, tonight I decided to toss those chimps back into their enclosure so I could stop thinking about writing and just write. It doesn’t matter what I churn out. It’s the act of writing and not the thought of writing that makes a writer.

My friend Heather recently sent me this amazing book by Anne Lamott. In Bird by Bird, Anne, a published author many times over, confesses her own struggle with writer’s block.

“What I do at this point, as the panic mounts and the jungle drums begin beating and I realize that the well has run dry and that my future is behind me and I’m going to have to get a job only I’m completely unemployable, is to stop.”

I am gifted at stopping and declaring defeat before I even begin. And it helps to know that even well-known writers experience a jungle-drum-level fear of doom when they’re facing a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise. Sometimes we humans are our own worst enemies. I stress myself out so much about what I should say that I end up saying nothing…something I did most of the days last year. But that has got to stop. In time and with enough practice, I will spend less time thinking and more time producing. Not every day is going yield a worthwhile piece. Some days I might be fortunate to land squarely somewhere between schlock and drivel. But even schlock and drivel are a tangible result of effort, a venture out of my self-prescribed mental straitjacket. It’s a step (or hop) in the direction I want to head. A bunny that fails to hop ends up Coyote Chow. I’m not prolific yet, but I’m sure I’m not ready to be finished either.

What hops have you been missing?

 

 

Posted on by Me 2

Beginning Bunny Buddhism

I don't patronize bunny rabbits.
I don’t patronize bunny rabbits.

Late last week, my sister introduced me to a book I knew was a game changer. The minute I saw it I knew I needed a copy for myself because it fits right in there with two things that appeal to me…working towards my zen and coveting fuzzy things. (Yes. I know to be truly zen I would have to not covet things, even soft, fuzzy things, but this is why I said I am working towards my zen. I am not there yet, people.) The book is Bunny Buddhism by Krista Lester. It is an adorable tome filled with wisdom about life and illustrations of darling bunnies on the path to bunniness. As soon as I got the name of the book, I was one-clicking my way through Amazon to get it here as fast as humanly possible. (Yes. I know instant gratification also goes against my path to zen, but I can only make this journey one step at a time.) Today the book arrived, and I devoured 186 pages of bunny thoughtfulness, carefully marking statements that resonated with me. Fifty some Post-It tabs later, I realized I have a lot more travel ahead on the road to zen than I originally thought.

Last week, a fellow blogger (and all around kind gal) commented that she missed my blog postings. She told me she was planning to write every day in April. I was tempted to join her on her journey, but ultimately decided that after all this time off I’d gotten too lazy to commit to a whole month. That seemed like an awful lot of work. Then Bunny Buddhism arrived in my mailbox, and with it came my inspiration. And so for the next couple weeks, or until I am plumb bored with cute, fuzzy things or deep, life-changing wisdom, I am going to pick a thought from the book and blog a bit about it.

Today’s Bunny Buddhism mediation is this:

Even a reliable bunny misses a hop sometimes; then the important thing becomes simply to return to hopping.

That is what I am doing right now. I am returning to hopping by blogging again. Once I was a reliable writer, composing something every day for a full year, but I lost my way. I decided other things in my life were more pressing. I reasoned that because writing is not a paying gig for me, I had best focus on my primary job as wildlife manager (aka “mom to two sons”). I thought maybe all the time off blogging would give me more time to focus on writing a book. It didn’t. I found other ways to occupy my time when I put writing on the back burner. I rewatched all the seasons and every single episode of Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and LOST. I read way too many articles about our food system that scared the bejeezus out of me. I spent appalling amounts of time on Facebook. And through it all, the only thing I learned is that I am a first-class escape artist. But at the end of the day, no matter what I do or don’t do, the one thing I can’t avoid is the knowledge that I am a writer. I may not be a world-class writer or a published writer or even (gasp) a working writer, but I am a writer. It is what I do. Writing is as much a part of me as my blue-hazel eyes, my constellations of moles, and my stubby fingernails. Denying it doesn’t make it less true. It only takes me further away from my true self.

My writing is not unlike my path to zen. I have a great deal to learn and a lot of room to grow. But I can’t make any progress by freaking out and freezing up when I miss a blog. Life will continue whether I write or not, but every day I skip writing I miss an opportunity to be my most authentic, wonderful, flawed, and yet-somehow-still-perfect self. And so I begin again. They say a journey of a thousand hops begins with a single hop, right?

Posted on by Me 11

Surviving The Fire Swamp

This photo is not relevant to this post. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.
This photo is not relevant to this post. I just happen to find things my boys do amusing.

Buttercup (referring to the Fire Swamp): “We’ll never survive.”

Wesley: “Nonsense. You’ve only saying that because no one ever has.”

~The Princess Bride

Someone asked me yesterday where I am with the book I am working on. It was a polite question, meant only to show interest in my progress. I have been dreading this question because, well, the truth is that I am nowhere with the book I am working on because I haven’t really started it. Wait. That’s not totally true. I have two ideas fleshed out and a couple chapters in each story attempt. I also have another story idea that I really kind of like, but it is still flipping over and over in my brain like a rock in a tumbler until I decide it’s shiny enough for me to write. So, I guess I have started writing. I simply haven’t made any real progress on an actual book.

A couple days ago I began analyzing my situation to determine what is causing my writing paralysis. Originally I blamed it on a lack of time. I used my blog as an excuse. Well, I’ve been off my blog more or less for over a month now and I haven’t added one lousy, stinking word to any of my started stories. Not one. I haven’t worked on a character sketch or written an outline. Aside from giving a couple hours’ worth of mental massage to my stories, I haven’t done a thing. I don’t suppose I can blame my blog for my lack of progress anymore. I have time now that the boys are back in school. As I documented the other day, I’ve had enough time to clean out my pantry, hand wash the floors, and dust baseboards. All those housecleaning maneuvers are clearly nothing but the actions of a desperate woman. I’m uncomfortable enough with the idea of having to write something creative that I cleaned out my pantry. I hadn’t done that job properly once in the ten years we’ve been in this house. Interesting that I should decide now is the time to remedy that situation.

Tonight, though, during a conversation with my sister it hit me. I was able to admit what is at the root of my procrastination. It’s fear. I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it. I’m afraid that if I do finish it that it still won’t be worth reading. I’m concerned that perhaps my putting myself forth as a writer was a mistake because if I do this and I’m not successful then I won’t even be able to claim that I am a writer. And, I only just got up the nerve to admit that I’m a writer a little less than a year ago. What if I’m a sham?

I’m a smart gal. I know there are no guarantees. I know that the best things in life come when you take a risk. I know that life is a growth proposition and to make forward progress you actually have to move. I know all these things. So, what the hell is my problem? Why am I being such a scaredy cat? And, how do I get beyond my fear? How do I make it through the Fire Swamp when I don’t see any way to survive?

I’d love to believe I could face the Fire Swamp the way that Wesley did, with optimism, blind faith, and complete confidence that it would all simply somehow work out. But, I don’t work that way, which is what has gotten me into this predicament in the first place. Rather than taking Wesley’s approach, like Inigo Montoya, I think I need to go back to the beginning. I need to make mini-goals that aren’t as scary as the goal of writing an actual book. Perhaps, first I will write a paragraph and see how that goes. Maybe I can do that every day for a week and then gradually, over time, I will find that fiction writing isn’t really as terrifying as I’m imagining? I nearly stalled out on my 80-page Master’s thesis due to this same type of writer’s paralysis, but I survived that Fire Swamp so I’m fairly certain I can negotiate this one. I have to stop telling myself I can’t. There are no flame spurts, lightning sand, or R.O.U.S. here, anyway, so that means my chances of survival are pretty good.

 

Posted on by Me 6

Busting At The Seams

Image 3
Ready for The Avengers

Four entries left in this 366 day experiment of mine. I had all day to come up with something to write, and yet nothing came to me. Instead of thinking, researching, clawing at the world to find a subject for this blog tonight, I went out to dinner, played foosball, got Pinkberry for dessert, and then settled in to watch our go-to family movie, The Avengers, with my boys. (On a side note: every time I watch this film, I wonder why when Dr. Banner’s shirt rips and falls away as he becomes the gargantuan green monster that is the Incredible Hulk his pants seem to grow with him instead of tearing apart like his shirt. I suppose, though, that if Banner’s pants ripped apart and there was full-frontal, green southern exposure, the film would lose its PG-13 rating. Probably not very family friendly at that point. But, I digress.)

I have three days left to determine the future course of this blog. I plan to continue it but on a reduced publishing schedule. I would love to devote more time to writing for publication, and the truth is that this blog can take two full hours of writing time each day away from those efforts. It’s time for me to move on in my life and tackle Phase 2 of my trek back into authorship. This blogging journey began as a selfish adventure. I wanted to see if I could do it, if I could get back to writing the way I used to back in the days when writing was an imperative, a calling. After my sons were born, I went through years when writing was something I wanted to do but couldn’t imagine how to accomplish.

After nearly a year of plugging away at my passion, I now realize two things: 1) this is what I’m meant to do and 2) I’ve only made it this far because of you. I’ve been overwhelmed by the support I’ve had from friends, family, and strangers as I worked each day within this crazy realm of blogging. So, I’m opening this up to those who have supported me. I know I need to make a change, but I don’t want to lose what I’ve established. What to do….what to do. What do you think? I’m considering going to two full entries and two shorter entries per week. Will this type of schedule dissuade you from caring? Will it all work out in the end and will I not find myself alone?

Not unlike the Hulk, I’m undergoing my own personal transformation here, busting out of the mold I’ve established. I hope that my journey has made me bigger than I used to be. I hope that I’ve grown. I know I’ve become much more exposed than I ever was before. Now I’m simply wondering if I can make this next transition successfully, gracefully, and with my pants in tact.

Posted on by Me 10

The Blogger’s Conundrum

Sometimes it’s hard for a writer to hang loose. Dinosaurs help.

One thing I struggle with constantly as a blogger is how to write things that are personally meaningful and heartfelt and yet innocuous. I often write about my family because my family is my job and my life. If I were a physician, I would write about medicine or if I were a priest I would write about faith. But, I’m a stay-at-home mom, so I write about what that is like for me. I try to be respectful. I try to choose my topics and words carefully. Sometimes, I still end up upsetting people. Sometimes, even things I feel I have written in a pointedly joking way come back to bite me because someone I know and love takes my words in a way I did not intend. It’s never easy when someone you care about lets you know your words offended, hurt, or annoyed them.

While writing about my personal life, I aspire to achieve a balance between humor and sensitivity, but sometimes I fail. And, when others fail to grasp my meaning in a written piece, I have substantively failed as a writer. I hate that. Before starting this blog, I debated about using a pseudonym. I weighed keeping my writing a secret and not publishing at all. Knowing that I write from my life experiences, I carefully considered what writing publicly would mean for my relationships. I very nearly decided not to attempt it at all. Then, one day, I resolved to be brave. I would take a risk. I would put myself out there wholly and completely, and that is what I attempted to do. Instead, though, I’ve censored myself repeatedly to ensure harmonious relationships. I feel I have barely even dipped my toe in the pool of self-disclosure. In this grand blogging experiment, what I’ve learned is that no matter how hard you try not to upset anyone, sometimes it just happens. I’ve also learned that you can’t predict what might bother someone, nor can you claim responsibility for their feelings. All you can do is write and hope for the best.

I’m down to the last 22 consecutive days left in this 366-day blogging adventure. I would walk away now (and, believe me, I’ve been toying with that idea for weeks), but I’m not a quitter. So, I’m staying until December 3rd as planned, at which time this blog will undergo some changes. I will likely reduce the amount of posts per week and I will also likely limit my subject matter. Both those things will cut down on the amount of times I’ll be able to annoy those near and dear to me.

I keep wondering how other writers balance this delicate situation. Is there a solution I’m missing? If I write honestly, am I doomed to a life of endangered relationships and lengthy personal explanations? Do I write what I want and ignore the fallout of others’ emotions? Writing is a gift to me only when I write without self-censure. I found a great quote tonight by famed poet Allen Ginsberg: “To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.” While that’s easier said than done with blogging, I suppose it is still possible. Maybe I just need to write what I need to say and then put on some noise-cancelling headphones and move forward and don’t look back?

Posted on by Me 2

Into the Virtual Wastebasket I Go

I’m in there somewhere

I have started writing this blog tonight no less than four times. Each entry has ended the same way. I select all the text, hit delete, and prepare to start again. I’m crumpling up pages of text virtually and tossing them into an imaginary wastebasket. Why I am struggling so mightily tonight to write? My only explanation is that my thoughts have been scattered today. As a writer, I’m one who needs time to reflect deeply, and my thoughts today have lingered on the shallow end of the pool.

It’s been a long week. My brain feels as abused as a New Jersey shore house battered by Hurricane Sandy. So, rather than spew some nonsense here that can at best be described as the ramblings of a woman overwrought by lying political ads, way too many Skittles, and far too little sleep…all in combination with a slow-moving chest cold…I’m going to pack it in. I am selecting all, hitting delete, and tossing myself into the wastebasket. Time to empty the trash. I can start fresh tomorrow.

Posted on by Me 1

Finding The Zen In Writing

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…

When I decided to start yet another blog, I struggled to find a name for it. My first blog, Suburban Sirens, was created when I decided that my 8-year hiatus from writing needed to end. The name was appropriate both as the Siren song that was calling suburban-mom me back to writing, as well as the sirens I fully expected to hear as a white van with barred windows pulled up in front of my suburban house to take me to a place with padded walls where I could continue to bang my head in peace. Eventually, though, I rationalized myself out of writing by concluding I was too busy. My posts became more and more sporadic, and the Sirens stopped beckoning.

My next blog was called Moms Into Adventure. It was devised as a vehicle to report on the many adventures in parenting and life that I planned to take on in an effort to transform my midlife crisis into a midlife free-for-all. From a Polar Plunge to adventure races to a burlesque class I felt I needed to take, I went out and tried new things and I wrote about them. It was fun for a while, and then I just got dog tired of coming up with adventures. It was exhausting being a human doing rather than a human being.

As the end of the year approached last year and I realized I was running out of money for adventures I would love to write about, I decided it was time to go in another direction. Perhaps the third time would be the charm? My previous two blogs had fizzled largely because I’d been unwilling to commit to a publishing schedule. So, I offered myself a challenge to write for 366 consecutive days. I’d been reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now and A New Earth. I found myself looking to become more grounded and reflective. I wanted to stop focusing on my next adventure and learn to enjoy the present moment, a task which has never been easy for me. I figured I needed to live in the now and try to find my zen. I also acknowledged that I needed to live a little now and then. The two ideas merged and thus was born Live Now and Zen, the perfect balance of my previous two blogs.

As I’m on day 318 of 366, I’m starting to reflect on where I’ve come from and where I’m going with my writing. I’ve learned a great deal about myself as a writer and as a person through my posts here. I think writing daily for nearly a year has forced me to accept my voice for what it is. I’ve had to determine what kind of writer I am. That writer, I’ve learned, is honest. I’ve learned that sometimes what I think is my best work impacts no one and something I feel was a waste of my time touches many. You never know what people might relate to. I’ve learned that some days I write schlock, and that’s okay. It happens. The mere act of writing is more important than the creation of a beautiful work of art. From continued practice comes growth, and while sitting around waiting for the idea the only thing you grow is moldy and stale. Sometimes it’s more important simply to show up. And, I’ve learned that it’s okay not to have millions of readers. Writing something that impacts one other person is more than enough.

I started to write this blog as a means to find the zen in my life, but I’m not sure that I’m any closer to achieving that than I was 300+ days ago. I still get aggravated, lose my temper with my children, and swear at idiot drivers. Now, though, I have a daily outlet for all that emotion. And while I’m no more zen in my life, I have become more zen about writing. This is not the zen I was looking for, but it’s what I needed. Writing is my thing. When I don’t write, I lose something of myself. So, I’m learning to write and I’m practicing. On day 367, I might take a day off for good behavior and to celebrate my achievement, but then it’s right back to it because writing is what I do…whether or not I do it well.

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