Friday, July 12, 2013

Today is the first day

I finished the AIDS ride, with lots of help. I just realized that I haven't posted since I was in the thick of training.  It was beautiful.  It was brutal. I took some beautiful photos. I met some great people, and some cranky others.  Just like life, concentrated in time. I see why people like doing it - it's a struggle, and a metaphor, and a reminder, and frankly it just feels good to work toward a good cause. We raised a lot of money, and it was an incredible accomplishment for all of us.  Truly.



I've been been back over a month, back into the usual grind of trying to get my creative mind to feel a little more like this


And less like this


But I suppose that's just the reality of it.

I cut a trailer for a friend's book, which anyone reading this should buy, it's called  "Leaving Tinkertown", and the writing is beautiful.  You can also watch the trailer here.

I've also had a couple of movie ideas, and still trying to outline those and a pilot. And I have my writing group.  So, it feels a little like the tangle above, just with additional colors, a few layers, and some tire tracks.

I've been getting a bunch of reminders about discipline, about daily practice, especially and most randomly from horoscopes. Oh, I also want to know the future.  Yeah, that's going to happen; please tell me what to do before I do it.

I've been toying with the idea of writing daily, actually wanting to, but I can't seem to do it on my own. I do have a group, but for daily practice, short of taking constant classes, the only thing that comes to mind is this blog. Of course, I'm immediately stopping myself thinking I have nothing to say, it would be navel-gazing, self-indulgent, drivel, who cares, etc.

But really, not even sure how many people read this since I post so infrequently, so what would be the harm?  And, as usual, I've never been met with anything close to what I think will happen when I put anything out there.  Usually, it seems, people enjoy it if they do read, and since I seem to philosophize on a daily basis, it might be nice to get some of that in virtual space.  If nothing else, if I make a promise to thin air I'm more likely to keep it than one I make myself.

There: I've talked myself into it.  Daily practice. Any subject is open.  Getting the mind and the fingers going. See, I've already done the first one!

4 comments:

StinkyLulu said...

Good for you for choosing this.

I recently chose to do something a little similar - page a day, almost turned into a 90in90 kind of thing, in a good way. I found it really worthwhile, and some accountability (ie the kind of public declaration you're doing here) proved key.

Good luck!

http://stinkylulu.tumblr.com/post/47357496989/on-march-30-i-had-a-palpable-instinct-aka

PS: one thing that really helped me this round was (a) the daily practice and (b) having the requirement of one page. Forcing myself to write and then to write to fill the page proved a good discipline for my. So, FWIW.

StinkyLulu said...

Also, again on a FWIW/FYI:
It really did help me to have a basic intention for the practice. In my case, it was "how do you FEEL about the writing process/product today?" Though I rarely hewed to that "prompt" it did give me a place to start and gave the process a feeling of continuity in a way, which also helped.

Elizabeth said...

I have found blogging an excellent way to exercise the muscle -- it often serves as springboard for my offline writing. I guess there's a temptation to be distracted by it, too, but to tell you the truth, the community that's grown around it is well worth those lapses in discipline. I suggest riffing/writing off of photos when you feel like you've nothing to say. Something always comes up when I do so --

I look forward to coming here daily, Mister, so do it!

Criticlasm said...

Thank you both - and I'll also keep up with yours, as it's a pleasure to read both of your writing. writings? yours writing? y'all's writing?