Re-beginning

Ok, I'm back.

I know, I promised to write this blog 3 times a week, and then I ramped it up to every day. Then I moved. It's been a month since I wrote, and it had been a month before that entry. But - yeah, but nothing. Yes, I'm busy and the city is wonderful but overwhelming and yes I was working on an article that I allowed to get much bigger than I'd expected or planned, much bigger than it's supposed to be, and yes I tend to be very tired at the end of the day and rushed first thing in the morning, the times I would normally write in this much-neglected blog. But really, I have no excuse. Except falling off the writing avoidance wagon, losing the good habit of the blog, and feeling bad enough for having done so that with every day that passed it got harder to go back.

My roommate was talking recently about some plan she was making for herself, and said "I'm not gonna make any rules I can't break..." and I liked that a lot: the flat-out acceptance that it's normal to break one's own rules, that you might as well make your rules with that in mind. So. There, I've broken those aforementioned blog rules I set up for myself. And look. The world didn't end. It actually got more interesting in the interim. And now I'm breaking my less-conscious but still sometimes oh-so-powerful internal rule that if I mess up, I must mess up forever. Or at least for a really long time, because hell knows I deserve to feel miserable if I'm not perfect, and messing up will help me do just that.

Hooray. It feels good to break that rule. It feels good and right and solid to return to what I love to do. Which brings me to some things that Susan Lori-Parks said way back on March 8 when I saw her at the 92nd St. Y. Which feels like about 3 years ago. Much good stuff in her lecture, and when I'm not falling asleep I'll list everything I wrote down in my scrappy tiny blue-covered spiral notebook. But for now I'm gonna end with this, which has run through my head more times than I can count in the last 6 weeks. SLP is a big stickler for writing EVERY DAY. For practicing imperfect craft to help you get to the whole truth that is writing. At the 92nd St Y lecture, a guy asked Suzan Lori Parks what she did when  she was just too tired (or too sick, or busy, or distracted, or or or....fill in the blank) to write anything of substance. She said: The important thing is just to do it. Lower the Bar. The guy said: Like write a sentence a day? SLP said: A word. Just write a word. At least a word!

So. I'm lowering my expectations of quality and raising the bar on participation. My new rule for myself is this: every day, you'll get at least a word from me. At least one word.

Today's word is: love.
Which, according to Suzan Lori Parks, is boundless. Unlike talent, which is limited. So we must write from love.

Working on it! More later.
W.