Why I'm Writing

Photo chosen because there's a degree of shamelessness involved any time you share your life online, right?

Hmm. I'm still figuring out what I want from writing in this space. And how what I am interested in writing intersects with what people are interested in reading. There’s something so awkward about trying to get strangers on the Internet interested in your life, isn’t there? (This is an interesting take). It's hard to imagine developing a huge following, and I'm not looking to turn this into a career. I do not plan on being a social media expert or a life coach.

Why am I writing, then?

Most of all, I am writing to push myself as a writer. I want to write more and better. These days, no one is assigning me to keep a weekly journal or to expound on my personal philosophies on life and literature, and I miss writing outside a professional setting. If I push more of my thoughts out of my personal journals and into the world, I'm hoping it will push me to think clearer, to write better, and to connect my own words with what could be valuable to someone else.

I am writing to work towards (if not hit) the 10,000 hour mark of mastery. 

I am writing to document, hopefully with some consistency. I have intermittently kept journals my entire life. I love both the process of emptying thoughts onto paper so I don't have to hold onto them so tight in my head, and having the record of how I saw the world at nine and sixteen and twenty. So I love the idea of having almost ten years of archives documenting your growing into adulthood.

I am writing in hopes that, in the process, I will find my voice, written and otherwise. I think finding your voice is one of the most important things you can do as a young adult. (Beyond growing in compassion and trying to save the world and all of that). 

I am writing because I want to practice condensing my thoughts into their most interesting kernel, omitting the whole lengthy backstory. 

I am blogging because as much as I like the idea of writing New Yorker-worthy essays, I perhaps have no imagination for fiction and no energy to research and write nonfiction, at least at the moment. Bits and pieces of my personal life, on the other hand, are right there for the inscribing. And what could be more interesting, to quote Dave Eggers, than the "many twists and turns of my own thrilling and complex mind"?

I am still trying to work out a cohesive subject matter, if such a thing exists in blogland. I will keep writing about my travels, and I hope that will push me to pay closer attention when I am traveling. I will post the occasional craft, and I hope that will push me to be more creative. But mostly, I plan to keep writing about this process of growing up, and to see where it all takes me.

Introducing the daily card project

When Elise wrote out her business story this fall, I discovered her old daily card project and was inspired enough to buy a deck of playing cards, thinking they would be fun to play with someday. I figured I'd decorate a card a week, or when I felt like it, or something else that seemed manageable. 

During a crazy fall, I mostly forgot about the cards until I heard Elise's podcast with Crystal Moody. In 2014, Crystal embarked on a year of creative habits, making a drawing a day and sharing it on her blog and Instagram. I definitely recommend listening to the podcast, but the main takeaways were that quantity leads to quality and creativity breeds more creativity. 

I fell in love with the idea of daily creativity and decided to "make something every day" in 2015 and quickly thought "why not a card?" I think it was a good call. "Do something creative every day" is vague and I know I would have been tempted to bend the rules as to what counted as creative. (Making boxed macaroni and cheese is still making something.) It's a case where having structure, rules, and limits can make you more creative.  Too many options and you freeze up.

I made a card on January 1, thinking I should cover my bases for anything I might want to do every day this year. (I also went for a run, took a photo, and wrote in my journal). And I have not missed a day since then. About mid-January, the excitement of starting something new wore off a bit and I realized how many cards stood between me and the end of the year -- but I kept it up. (The first couple weeks of cards are pictured).

And so far I am in love with this project. I am hoping it really will make me more creative. I go through phases when I have a ton of ideas - phrases, reflections, etc. - playing around in my head, and others where I am mainly thinking about what I am going to eat for dinner. I am hoping to tip the balance towards the former.

I'll be back next week with more card photos and more thoughts on daily creativity.

a year in sunsets (an addendum to the "best of" series)

(From top to bottom: Shenandoah, Virginia; Chelan, Washington; Cap Bon peninsula, Tunisia; Tunis, Tunisia; Washington, DC; Newport Beach, California)

This blog has gotten pretty photo-heavy lately. Which is funny because I consider myself more a writer than a photographer - at least not a capital-p Photographer. (Though I am not really a capital-w Writer either.) But you don't have to be a capital-p Photographer to capture amazing sunset pictures. They are pretty much handed to you on a silver platter. It was fun to look through my iPhoto and remember the different places I've seen the sun go down this year.