My favorite part of any (Americanized) Chinese meal is the fortune at the end. Not the fortune cookie–the actual fortune. I like to look for little things in life that I can construe as signs from the universe and, while some fortunes are not at all applicable, I can usually relate to them somehow. I like to keep my fortunes, too, and display the ones that inspire me in places where I’ll see them often, like this one that’s currently in my car next to the display screen:
This is obviously a strange time to be looking for signs when the universe seems to have spectacularly run off the tracks. We’re in the middle of a pandemic (yes, friends–we’re still in the middle of it. It’s a real thing, and it hasn’t gone away, no matter how many people try to pretend that it isn’t and/or that it has…), and people are struggling with and losing loved ones to the virus. Kids (and teachers) are constantly bounced back and forth between in-person and virtual learning, not to mention lots of other workers who are either transitioning from working in an office to working from home or have lost their jobs altogether. We in the U.S. currently have a president who has not only done very little to address the pandemic, but now seems to be actively sowing seeds to try to impede the next administration’s dealing with it, including refusing to admit that he’s lost the election despite all of the evidence that he did, in fact, lose the election. I haven’t even gotten into all of the other things going on in the country/world right now, and I probably won’t in this post, for brevity’s sake, but even just everything to do with the pandemic is a lot for us to collectively be dealing with. Like, a LOT a lot.
Admittedly, I haven’t been impacted by the pandemic nearly as much as many others have. I have my job, I have my health, and now I’ve even kind of settled into a fairly comfortable pandemic routine–I run, I go to work, I wear masks everywhere in public, I hang out with The Bearded One, I help my dad on the farm (masked if we’re working closely), I take my dog for long walks outside, and I stay up too late making more masks (so I have plenty of variety) and crocheting and watching things like Dawson’s Creek. *Side note: I never watched it in the 90’s and early aughts, but there’s SO much going on in that show, and it’s a fun look back at the styles and heartthrobs of my teenage years.* It took a while, but I’ve weirdly adjusted to pandemic life and, now that I have, I’m ready to get back to working towards designing and achieving the kind of life I really want. And that includes pursuing some dreams I’ve had for a while. Which brings me back to fortune cookies.
A couple of months ago, I got Chinese food (takeout because, as I mentioned, there’s a pandemic). At the end of my meal, I unfolded that little slip of paper to reveal my latest message from the beyond:
This fortune has been living on my bathroom mirror since it came to me, daring me to get back to really improving myself and going after what I want. Taunting me, even. So, here I am–dusting off one of my biggest dreams, which is to become a writer. I love putting words together, I love finding meaning where others may not, and I love communicating effectively, and what better way to improve at all of that than jump back into my blog? I’ve heard it said, in a few different ways, that to become something you want to be, all you have to do is do the things that those people do. It’s a simple thought, but it’s true–all I really have to do to become a writer is write. Not think about writing, not keep a list of possible blog post ideas that I never actually blog about, just write.
I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a writing streak–much like my running streak, which you’ve probably heard about if you’ve read some of my older blogs. First I had the idea that I would start with NaNoWriMo this year, but instead of writing 50,000 words of a novel I decided I wanted to write 50,000 words of anything during the month of November. I failed spectacularly at it–I stayed caught up for about four days, and then missed one and felt like I would never have time to catch up, so I just quit. With running, I’m not really a sprint person OR a marathon person–I’m a mile-a-day person, and apparently with writing I’m the same way. Trying to write 50,000 words in a month felt like both a sprint AND a marathon so, on December 2nd, 2020 (the 939th day of my running streak), I started a writing streak. I didn’t want to have a daily word count goal, because I felt like that would lead to me rambling in my writing even more than I usually do. So I decided to commit to writing (or editing my writing) for at least 15 minutes a day, every day. I can always write more than that, but I don’t want to write less than that going forward. I would also like to become a successful writer someday–one who really writes well and maybe even makes some money at it, but I know that working up to writing well enough to get paid will take time and practice.
I heard a quote from Ira Glass (storyteller extraordinaire) years ago, and I had to go track it down because it’s so appropriate for me right now. I cut it down for succinctness, but in a video called Ira Glass on Storytelling, Part 3 Ira said, “…all of us who do creative work… …we get into it because we have good taste… …for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good… It’s TRYING to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you… …a lot of people, at that point they quit. And the thing I would just like to say to you, with all my heart, is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of YEARS where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. …you’ve gotta know that’s totally normal, and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline, so that every week or every month you know you’re gonna finish one story. … Whatever it’s going to be… …you create the deadline. It’s best if you have somebody who’s waiting for work from you… …who’s expecting work from you. Even if it’s not somebody who pays you but that you’re in a situation where you have to turn out the work. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you’re actually going to catch up and close that gap.“
I’m in the gap. I do think I have good taste where writing is concerned, and I know that my writing isn’t where I want it to be yet. But I want to get to the other side of the gap, and I know I won’t get to the other side unless I do the work. So, here I am, doing the work. I’ve been writing/editing for at least 15 minutes every day for the last five days, and I’m committing now to you, my readers (a small group, but I appreciate you!) that I will post weekly on my blog. I’m thinking on Sundays, though I’m just getting this one in under the wire. I’m taking the advice of Ira Glass and some wise fortune cookie makers: I’m increasing the volume of my work, I’m giving myself a weekly deadline, I’m trying not to overthink it, I’m taking action, and I’m dusting off some of those old dreams–it really is an excellent day for it.
*Note: Credit for the sweet ornament on my tree in the photo at the top of the page goes to an old neighborhood friend. Check out more of her work on Etsy or Facebook at Those Effing Stitches. 🙂
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