Thanks to my friend's blog, I found this thing called #reverb10. Bloggers receive one question every day from December 1st-December 31st and the idea is to evaluate 2010 and think about the coming year. So here I am jump starting my new blog for my new year with an exercise in self discovery. I'm a little behind so I'm going to do 2 a day for a little while until I catch up.
Prompt #1
December 1 – One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you? (Author: Gwen Bell)
I guess my word is SPINNY. Not really sure if that's a real word but that's how I feel about it. When I was a little girl I loved spinning. Head back, arms out, eyes wide open staring at the sky. Like giving god a hug. Then stopping abruptly to wobbling around like an adorable drunk child. That is how the year has felt to me. Since New Years day 2010 one event after another have spun me around and around. It's been great and disorienting and thrilling and nauseating and it, much like when my childhood self would spin, has knocked me on my ass.
So, as look into the coming year my hope is for more NURTURING. If spinning is giving god a hug then nurturing is feeling god hug back. I want to find better ways of caring for myself and better ways of allowing others into my life that care for me.
Prompt #2
December 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)
To get a feel for this question, which BTdubbs feels weird to me, I decided to read some other people's bloggings on it. The few postings I read felt really negative to me. Some people didn't like that the question assumed that everyone doing this exercise has the goal of being a writer. It seems like an odd objection seeing as how the exercise is for bloggers and that by definition makes it an exercise for writers. But I get the point. Not everyone who writes a blog wants to be a professional. There are many reasons to write a blog and that's ok. Mostly the postings were people talking about what they do with their time and how that might keep them in a state of procrastination. It seems that this question brings out a sense of negativity. Yucks to that!
I am a writer. I blog for fun, but I do need to do a certain amount of writing to keep doing the things that I want to be doing with my life, like comedy. I also have an endless number of things that I do to avoid writing when I just don't feel like doing it. I always have a reason not to put together a set list or re-work a joke that I think could be better or do a second draft of a script or sketch I'm working on. But I'm not sure that these things don't necessarily not (triple negative) "contribute" to my writing. Hell, I'm writing about them at the moment aren't I? I guess I'm of the opinion that everything I DO makes a contribution to my creative self. "DO"ing is the very essence of making any type of art. It's when I'm not doing anything that my work really suffers. So I guess the thing that I do that doesn't contribute to my writing is not doing anything. When I stop participating in my life I have nothing to write about and therefore my work and my audience suffers. So, can I eliminate not doing anything? I don't know. And I don't know if I'd want to find out. I guess for the moment I'll just keep going and hope that if a block does come my way that I will have stock-piled enough creative nuts to survive an insipid winter.
So, there's a start. See you next time!!
I am the first follower! Hooray for me! :-D
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