Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A new year and a new attempt at keeping up with my writing.  You know how I wrote back in October that I was inspired to write by a guy named Tim Miles who writes a blog called "The Daily Blur?"  I was inspired, truly I was.  But then Tim never wrote again for the remainder of the year, and it was like that gave ME permission to not write either.  Weird rationale there, I know, but I think that happened.

Well, Tim is back and vowing that if he is going to call his blog "The Daily Blur," then he needs to write it DAILY.  First-off, I'm glad he feels that way because I can't wait to read it, but I also think it just might keep me in line.

I hope.  It's a matter of doing what Tim wrote in his first installment for the year, quoting William Wordsworth, "To begin, begin."

He also wrote about how he thinks it's better to not make a list of overwhelming resolutions for the new year, but rather set a theme for the year that you're going to try to follow in all things you do.  He's done things like "The Year of Atonement" and he's dubbed 2012 "The Year of Sucking It Up."

I like this whole idea.  One year his theme was "The Year of Saying No."  Boy, do I really get THAT one.  I'm weak in that area, or have been until about the last year.  When somebody asks me to take something on, do this, serve on a board, etc., I've found it difficult to disappoint them, to say "No, I don't have the time," but after having things pile up and spreading myself far too thin, then getting resentful, I've gotten better at saying, "No can do, sorry" and the world hasn't stopped spinning.  Go figure.

So, what could be a good theme for me for 2012? 

"The Year of Not Saving Boxes" perhaps?  Yes, that's another weakness.  I hate to throw out boxes.  How many times have you needed a great box and you haven't had one?  Ha, see, you've experienced that!  Well just come to my garage.  I'm sure I have one.  Actually, I only have a few piling up now, and they ARE sitting by the recycling container.  I just haven't broken them down yet.  But when I do, I always think, "Oh, but what if I need this exact box for something next week?"

Wait....there's another one:  "The Year of Not Asking 'What If?'"  That might be a female thing, now that I think about it.  We are kind of wired to do that.  "But what if I do THAT, and then THIS happens, and THAT happens, and what if when THAT happens, THIS then happens?"  You get the picture.  Not sure the hormones can enable me to stop that, but I can, and do, work on it.

Perhaps 2012 is "The Year of Folding the Clothes When the Dryer Stops."

Wait, I can tell you right now that is NOT going to happen, so let's just move right along.

Seriously, I'm not sure I have it figured out yet, or maybe I haven't figured out how to put it into words, but when it comes to writing, I think "Editing" is a key theme: Edit myself so that I can write more by writing less (does that make sense?  It does to me.)  What I mean is, if I edit myself so that I don't write a novel each time, I think I'll be more likely to write fairly frequently.  The whole "Less Is More" kind of thing.  Like I said, it makes sense to me, so we'll just go with that.

I know in my writing I have edited myself in one sense, in that I've never talked about anything personal, meaning my personal life.  There's a reason for that, and if I decide that 2012 is the year where I'm brave enough to go down that path in my writing, so that it's the full picture and not just me talking about life with my dogs, you'll hear about it.  I need to give that some more thought, however.  Stay tuned.  That could be very scary.  If I get brave enough to write about it, you'll know why I say that it's scary.

It's interesting how that inability to say no that I spoke of earlier plays into my not having time to write.  I couldn't say "No" when asked to be the Show Chairman for this monster of a dog show coming up in 2 weeks, and it's been like a second job this last year.  There have been nights when, rather than being up until 1 AM writing my blog, I've been up late dealing with dog show details.  Several nights I was close to falling victim to what my 18 year old nephew refers to as "Waffle Face"----when you get so tired while sitting at the computer, you fall forward with your face on the keyboard, fast asleep, waking up to see that those keys left you with waffle-like indentions on your face.  My nephew, the computer gaming expert that he is, swears it's happened to him more than once.  Waffle face.....who knew?

I still have one more year of my Show Chair duties as once we get past this 2012 dog show in two weeks, it's time to turn our attention to the show in January of 2013.  That means I'm going to have to strike a balancing act between all of this.

If you see me some morning looking like a fresh Belgian Waffle, check my blog.  I probably was writing the night before.

No comments: