Originally this blog started as my “working it out” space, to play and learn, as a fairly new blogger. I’m not sure I meant to make the whole blog private for so long and have hopefully put that right. Mostly it’s an excercise in simply practising writing as I’m very out of the habit. i surprised myself with writing something resembling a short story for the first time in decades and might extend and expand that start at some point (in the next year being a snail…)!
I’d been stuck in the muddy shallows, up to my neck in it, unable to enjoy any hobbies or past-times for so long that a belated resolution for the new year became to start blogging, pick up new skills and try and escape being so bogged down with impossible life circumstances. It doesn’t work like a magic wand to solve all, but is some escape. Although I’ve lost track somewhat for other challenges arising I’ll have to make more of a focussed effort to pick up the threads and carry on.
At the moment I guess every blog I’ve started is “a practice blog” but each with a different focus (was the idea!) This arena is my wide-ranging writing space, mostly creative writing and free-writing. I keep forgetting the golden rule of frequently hitting “save” and losing my writing so i’d make that goal number ONE – remember SAVE and lose less (and trying to squeeze in an extra goal, I’d edit better at time of posting to correct typos and grammar and save trawling back to correct!)
I don’t write much at all off-line or in hand-writing – for one I don’t like using paper any more, it’s become almost a phobia – and I also enjoy writing live on the wire more than putting things down on a dead page. I tend to be quite disjointed and distracted so the ease of writing with a computer is preferable and I get less RSI than using a pen. I do keep a paper based journal but it’s mostly a non-creative list of the time the day starts and ends and all the mundane achievements and notes of the day’s (limited) activity. if I tried I might discover a few hidden starters in there but my creative outputs there are extremely seldom.
I’ve probably missed keeping up with a number of goals I’d already mentioned in my writing here so far (so identifying those and planning is goal number TWO). I don’t retain information well and keep forgetting where to find things in the menus and how to do things (and even what I’d intended or set out to do) – that makes the process frustrating and cumbersome. But it was meant to be a learning experience and it was intended to be enjoyable so I’ll not waste energy fretting over it. I do however need to organise myself better (so that’s goal THREE , develop a routine within and without other routines) and try and keep my writing fresh and refreshing rather than forced. I’ve a small number of free-writing drafts tucked away in private view to revisit and work on if and when I choose and some rough ideas that haven’t emerged yet.
I’m also not sure I’m entirely happy with the way this blog appears and need to experiment…but stuck in reluctance and resistance to change… I’ll probably forget about trying blogging 201 tasks here for the duration of this current course and concentrate more on content, practice and just sustaining writing, free and easy, learning as I go (hopefully)… from next week I have the challenge of learning poetry and hope to respond to those tasks more efficiently than I am for blogging 201 but using the “practice blog” I created for that (failed) learning project https://pathwayhalfwayhome.wordpress.com/ as a dedicated space for poetry 201, hopefully having settled it’s appearance and features with some planned improvements by the weekend and hopefully keeping up with task responses better than currently for blogging 201.
Focussed writing for purpose (eventually) takes place over at (…mantra Earth…) in development over the next few weeks and a group blog project currently on hold looking at a likely three to six month development timescale (while I learn to organise content and while offline participants provide some coherent group content for me to organise!)
s o F a r S o S t u 