"And now let us welcome the New Year - full of things that
have never been." (Rainer Maria Rilke, poet)
{Recycling a bit from last year, but I do love this quote}.
Sifting through all the things that made up the year that is ending, this is what I come back to:
One day each week for most of this past summer, I took a spiral notebook, a juicy roller-ball gel pen, and one writing-related book to the library up the road to write.
My two rules were simple but non-negotiable: I had to stay for at least an hour and I couldn't bring my journal. The first rule helped me begin. The second rule held up a mirror and said "look, you do a ton of writing in your journal and that's fine, but you want to write other things, so let go of the crutch, the ease of the journal and see what you can do."
At the end of the summer, I had a stack of pages for my efforts, the most fiction writing I've ever done. It doesn't matter that none of the writing has form; I wasn't working on a novel or a story. The accomplishment was in keeping the commitment. The accomplishment was in the doing.
2010 has been what years usually are, a cocktail of good and not so, the unexpected and the daily, more and less, new and old, misstep and opportunity, yesses and noes, hellos and goodbyes. I listened to my heart more, explained less, spent more time with my camera, with paint, with words, and less with my art journal.
My aspiration for the new year is to spend the currency of my time in the doing - not frantic striving - but taking the little steps necessary, one upon the other and then another and on and on, to do the things I wish to do.
So then, doing and not just talking about doing. Doing and not just reading about how it's done or reading about other people doing. Doing and not taking a class that feels like doing (but is really stalling or avoidance or fear).
As it was this year, so it is in the next (which is really just the day after tomorrow), listening to my heart and putting it into action one micromovement at a time.
emma tree: 2011 soften
radicalflower: 2010 listography
everything feeds process: goodbye 2010
ihanna: time for introspection and creative dreams
give a girl a fig
poetic asides: the last poem
heather smith jones: a year in photos
lee is fearless
Sifting through all the things that made up the year that is ending, this is what I come back to:
One day each week for most of this past summer, I took a spiral notebook, a juicy roller-ball gel pen, and one writing-related book to the library up the road to write.
My two rules were simple but non-negotiable: I had to stay for at least an hour and I couldn't bring my journal. The first rule helped me begin. The second rule held up a mirror and said "look, you do a ton of writing in your journal and that's fine, but you want to write other things, so let go of the crutch, the ease of the journal and see what you can do."
At the end of the summer, I had a stack of pages for my efforts, the most fiction writing I've ever done. It doesn't matter that none of the writing has form; I wasn't working on a novel or a story. The accomplishment was in keeping the commitment. The accomplishment was in the doing.
2010 has been what years usually are, a cocktail of good and not so, the unexpected and the daily, more and less, new and old, misstep and opportunity, yesses and noes, hellos and goodbyes. I listened to my heart more, explained less, spent more time with my camera, with paint, with words, and less with my art journal.
My aspiration for the new year is to spend the currency of my time in the doing - not frantic striving - but taking the little steps necessary, one upon the other and then another and on and on, to do the things I wish to do.
So then, doing and not just talking about doing. Doing and not just reading about how it's done or reading about other people doing. Doing and not taking a class that feels like doing (but is really stalling or avoidance or fear).
As it was this year, so it is in the next (which is really just the day after tomorrow), listening to my heart and putting it into action one micromovement at a time.
Happy New Year to you!
Some of my favorite new year posts (so far):
emma tree: 2011 soften
radicalflower: 2010 listography
everything feeds process: goodbye 2010
ihanna: time for introspection and creative dreams
give a girl a fig
poetic asides: the last poem
heather smith jones: a year in photos
lee is fearless
