Friday – 02 January 2015
I’m really trying to get back in the habit of blogging more regularly here.
…and at Pinstripes and Polos.
… and at Four-Color Coverage.

I found an article, Jumpstart Your Journaling: A 31-Day Challenge, that might just be the impetus I needed to get myself back into the swing of things.

Granted, this blog isn’t as much “journal” as it is “repository for impulses, images and other echoes,” but the principles are similar enough that I think that I can employ some/most of the techniques.

With that, I’m going to put this entry to work doing double-duty: Day One and Day Two’s challenges. Granted, I wrote a post yesterday, so I’m kind of up on that, but in the interest of adhering to the challenge, I’m going to do the Day One Challenge.

  • Day 1: Start with answering the question of why you want to journal, and beyond that, why you decided to embark on this 31-day experience. Write out what you’d like to get from journaling.

    When I started this blog, it was originally to get ideas for writing (prose, poetry, whatever really…). It wound up becoming a chimera of daily observations, things going on with me and the people around me, noteworthy things in the news, and a few ideas for writing. And it was good.

    What I hope to get out of this challenge is to get back into the flow of doing that on a regular basis. Even if it isn’t daily, I want to get back in the habit of writing regularly… or, if not writing, just sketching something – another thing I haven’t really done in far too long – and posting it online.

  • Day 2: Continuing to work within that idea of constraints, try to write a 6-word memoir of your life so far. This idea is rumored to have originated from Papa Hemingway. The benefit is that with only six words, you really have to filter your life to what you deem most important. It may take you many iterations, but you’ll end up with something that speaks largely to who you are, if not in toto, then at least in this moment in time.

    Faced challenges. Learned lessons. Still growing.

That was a good first (and second) step. Now to make sure that the ball doesn’t stop rolling.

Namaste.