Commit2Write

thoughts swirl and voices carry on conversations between the girl with the green eyes and hazelnut hair and the stable boy who mucks out stalls and wears suspenders.  Words are whispered, promises breathed and subsequently broken; lives spelled out, letter by letter, pushed to the very precipice of disaster and miraculously saved or sometimes, dashed against the rocks.

We write.
Or at least we'd like to.
But there's this thing about those conversations in my head...they just can't seem to make it onto paper.

At Relevant 2011 I attended a workshop on writing.  The speakers {Emily P. Freeman, Sarah Markley, Sara Sophia, Lisa-Jo Baker, and Serena Woods} shared a wealth of information and I so appreciated being able to listen in on their words of wisdom.  One thing that resonated with me was the admonition and encouragement from Sarah Markley to write 300 words a day.

300 words.

It sounds like a lot, but really, it isn't.  As I mulled it over and over in my head I knew that I would need help.  I would need the help of other women like me who feel the overwhelming compulsion to scratch pen to paper {or click nails to plastic keyboard} and sort out their life-blood.  So here I am.

I'm not sure what will happen or if this will even go anywhere, but here's my idea.

Let's write.
Let's write 300 words, four (4) days a week.
You don't have to publish them--just write them.
Whether it be in your journal,
your blog,
your napkin at starbucks {though it would have to be quite a large napkin}
just write it down.

Then every Tuesday link up your favorite post from that week
because as we write 300 words 4 days a week
for a grand total of 1200 a week,
our overall writing will improve
and thus, so will our posts.
{if you want to be brave and post one of your 300 worders that would be swell}

So...here goes.
One big leap.
Will you Commit2Write ?

feel free to grab the image above by 

right clicking and saving it

It'd be just peachy if you'd link back to 

hitherto & henceforth.

Link up below if you want in :-)  I can't wait to see what's going to happen!

P.s.- we'll be tweeting with the #commit2write hashtag

perfectionism

I would have never pegged myself as a perfectionist.

I'm more of a "just get the job done" kind of girl.  When I was in college studying to be and interpreter, the same scene played night after night in the ASL lab; girls would walk in, hauling their overloaded backpacks laden with books, videos, and notes.  After about an hour of writing on paper, studying other videos, and practicing to themselves and possibly another tutor they would take their place in front of the video camera.  Holding their head high they would press "play" and begin to sign, relaying a story, anecdote, or assignment.  After a bit, one would hear a labored sigh from one or more of the carrels as a girl would mess up, misproduce a sign, hands not quite forming the correct shape.  The tape would stop, be rewound, and the taping would begin again.  I watched girls drive themselves to tears in a quest to perfectly sign whatever assignment it was they were working on.  Four hours would pass and out of fifteen attempts, the girls would have one or two that might fit the bill, but they still weren't the stellar performance for which they hoped.

Tapes ejected, backpacks restuffed, and shoulders sunk, they would trek back to the dorms to drown their imperfections in a pint of Ben & Jerry's.

I wasn't one of those girls.

No, I put a limit on myself.  Three tries and then I would take the best of the three.  See, no perfectionist here.
Then I started writing and the inner perfectionist manifested.  If I can't get just the right word to fit into the space, the rhythm and lilt to flow just right I get so frustrated with myself.

Years ago, when I first started blogging, I blogged about anything and everything with no thought to where I could link up, who would read it, or even if anyone would want to read it.  I blogged for one person and one reason.  I wrote for me, myself, and I and because I wanted to.  Other than that, there was no reasoning.

At times I am now paralyzed by the thoughts scurrying across my brain with the label of "to blog about."  The busyness of my brain is getting in the way of the thing I love and what is one to do about it.  Well, personally, I've decided on this little typographical print....I think it could apply to all of us....

Source: gatherlove.tumblr.com via Joy on Pinterest

What think ye? 

prisoners

He taught the prisoners and me to put a little bit down on paper every day, and to read all the great books and plays we could get our hands on.  He taught us to read poetry.  He taught us to be bold and original, and to let ourselves make mistakes, and that Thurber was right when he said, "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards."

- Anne Lamott

Bird by Bird

I recently started Bird by Bird after having bought it more than a year ago.  It's funny how I purchase recommended reading only to let them collect dust on my shelf, never allowing their pages to see the light of day or feel the pressing point of my pencil detailing how they are imprinting my life.  I read the above section and am reminded of the choking hold of expectation--of the thought, "What will they think of me."  I know that Anne's father taught actual prisoners at San Quentin and they are to whom she refers in this passage, yet aren't we all prisoners to our own expectations?  our own fears of making a mistake?  I know I was.  

chrean.deviantart.com

The scratched and dented table surrounded by the plants I can't seem to keep alive, the breakfast nook with it's arch, the couch--these are the places I write.  I write there because most of the time my writing is accompanied by another something that concurrently needs to be accomplished.  My son wants to work on writing his letters and doing mazes so I move my writing to the table.  My children want me to sit, squished together, arms and legs everywhere on the couch while they revel in Mater's antics and watch Buck Denver talk to them about What's In the Bible....my writing moves with me.  No matter where I am physically writing, there is a voice that goes with me that tells me I will make a mistake.  I will mess up.  I am not enough, my words are not original, my grammar is as holey as swiss. 

I try to be bold, yet my desire to be read dictates that I play it safe.  "Don't bare too much of your soul, they will hate it and then they will hate you.  Don't write that, they might not like it."  the voice taunts.

My answer is that if I don't bleed the thoughts onto paper, then what are they worth.

Have I overcome this fear?  By no means.  Every time I sit to write I am taunted by it.  I tell the voice when to shut-up.  I must understand that the voice only runs rampant because I give it permission to do so.  So, today, tell that voice to sit down, and shut up.

thecolorsofmymind.tumblr.com

Writing takes time.  It is by far my favorite hobby, but I choose to write instead of exercise, write instead of read a book. As with all other things in life, if you say "yes" to writing, you must say "no" to something else.  If I am going to say "no" to something, I want to make sure the thing for which I am saying "no" is worth it.  Intellectual vomit isn't worth anything.  The old saying is "A penny for your thoughts."  We must understand that our thoughts are worth far more than a penny...even if no one wants to read them.  So today

be bold

take a stand

write about something you've never

written about before

make a mistake

(preferably one that doesn't hurt others

or is irreversibly life-altering, but nonetheless)

you might soar

you might fall

(but we'll be here cheering as you get back up)