Happy New Year.
I just wrapped up a life coaching session, and I've come to a conclusion that might be obvious to everyone else, but is kinda news to me: the reason that I didn't really put too much in my journal last year is that I'm too wordy.
I think that I have this tendency to want to write a novel every time something of note happens in my life, and so there have been few times in the last year (well, actually longer than that) where I've had the luxury of spending an afternoon writing all about it, and then paring it down into something that makes sense (or, more often, expanding it to an even bigger behemoth in the editing process). So, one of my goals this year is to teach myself to get to the point. That's not to say that I won't write any more long entries (in fact, there's one that's brewing that's probably going to have to be broken up in parts), but I don't need to write ten pages when two will do.
I'm hopeful that perhaps if I become better at getting to the point, I might have more time to write about the stuff in my past that's worth reading. I've got a million little stories running around in my head about things I've done and experienced, and I want to get them written down before I die.
On a related tangent, I have a lot of stuff. We have this den that would make an incredible little office for me to do my homework (and later, for quillon to do his), if it weren't cluttered with boxes of crap that I've carried with me for years. I think I've finally found the framework in which to explore paring it down, getting ruthless about what I keep and what goes into the trash, or recycle bin, or posted on Craigslist: I plan to make a habit of taking at least a few minutes of each day going through stuff, and asking if it still serves me. If it has become extraneous debris, it goes. I can honor the role that it played in my life up to this point, bless it, and let it go. It could be what some might consider a religious experience, I suppose, in that there's a recognition that it was important to me at some point, and I can be mindful of that even as I purge it. I'm not setting a timetable because that's all artificial and really just a trick to get you to do something, and it's also an opportunity to fail. Besides, I am not sure what it's going to look like when I'm done.
I recognize that there's a connection between all the crap that I hang onto in a physical sense, and the extra words I use to tell a story. There's a relationship between the way I talk (or write) and the way I live. That's getting edited this year.
This could get interesting, in and of itself.
I think that I have this tendency to want to write a novel every time something of note happens in my life, and so there have been few times in the last year (well, actually longer than that) where I've had the luxury of spending an afternoon writing all about it, and then paring it down into something that makes sense (or, more often, expanding it to an even bigger behemoth in the editing process). So, one of my goals this year is to teach myself to get to the point. That's not to say that I won't write any more long entries (in fact, there's one that's brewing that's probably going to have to be broken up in parts), but I don't need to write ten pages when two will do.
I'm hopeful that perhaps if I become better at getting to the point, I might have more time to write about the stuff in my past that's worth reading. I've got a million little stories running around in my head about things I've done and experienced, and I want to get them written down before I die.
On a related tangent, I have a lot of stuff. We have this den that would make an incredible little office for me to do my homework (and later, for quillon to do his), if it weren't cluttered with boxes of crap that I've carried with me for years. I think I've finally found the framework in which to explore paring it down, getting ruthless about what I keep and what goes into the trash, or recycle bin, or posted on Craigslist: I plan to make a habit of taking at least a few minutes of each day going through stuff, and asking if it still serves me. If it has become extraneous debris, it goes. I can honor the role that it played in my life up to this point, bless it, and let it go. It could be what some might consider a religious experience, I suppose, in that there's a recognition that it was important to me at some point, and I can be mindful of that even as I purge it. I'm not setting a timetable because that's all artificial and really just a trick to get you to do something, and it's also an opportunity to fail. Besides, I am not sure what it's going to look like when I'm done.
I recognize that there's a connection between all the crap that I hang onto in a physical sense, and the extra words I use to tell a story. There's a relationship between the way I talk (or write) and the way I live. That's getting edited this year.
This could get interesting, in and of itself.