And so it begins….
Life has kept me busy the past several months, as a result I’ve spent less time writing. Random poetry, journaling events from the day, written thoughts for my daughter, transcribing my experiences into short stories or creating adventures from my mind. I have let the hustle and bustle of daily life prevent me from “getting the words out,” as I like to say, and I feel like I’m going to bust at the seams.
Inspiration hit me the other day when Medium recommended this article, What I Learned Writing a Haiku Every Day for 100 Days. It smacked me across the head in two ways. First of all, just write something creative, anything at all, get those juices flowing. And secondly, share it.
Whoa there, just a minute! Share it? That’s crazy talk. My creative writing is very personal and something I’ve only shared with a handful of people. For instance, when I tell someone I like to write poetry a blank stare is often their response. Then I say “you know that latest song on your iPod, it’s actually a poem or a short story…set to music.” They respond with “ah, that’s right” and nod their head before walking off. Some of the time I stand there feeling a little dejected and judged. Most other times I feel a weight lifted. I revealed a personal part of myself and it didn’t hurt, in fact the feeling of revelation usually invigorates me to create something new.
Then I got to thinking, I’ve actually shared a lot of my writing. Several years ago, during the mid-2000's, I used to blog about parenting, software development, relationships, current events and such. The difference though, was that it was all carefully prepared with the intention of creating or perpetuating my persona. I filtered the content heavily and leaned towards concrete topics versus creative, artistic ones.
Enter present day and I want to challenge myself creatively. With that in mind, I’m going to write something daily and share it here at Rough Words. I’ll edit and filter to some degree, but it’ll be rough in the sense that the words will be fresh out of my creative mind and written in real-time without sitting on it for days or weeks, tweaking the words for perceived perfection.
What should you expect? There will be poetry, short stories, random thoughts, personal experiences, and perhaps days with just a few words…pretty much anything goes.
As to how long I’ll maintain this personal challenge? I’m not sure. It might be a month, three months or longer than a year. We shall see….
~tod
