Since it worked so well for me last year, I decided to make March my write-a-blog-post-a-day month. I decided this on February 28, and I was all raring to go, so I changed things up a bit: Between the end of February and the end of March, I was going to write thirty-one posts … it didn’t have to be one a day. I know, what a rebel! Although it sounds silly to normal people, that slight change was completely liberating to this rule-loving fool.
I wrote one post on the 28th and then four (!) on March 1st! I was a blog writing maniac! There was no stopping me … until the river seemed to run dry for days. After being so far ahead, suddenly I was behind. I was ready to simply be grateful for the posts I’d already written and call it a day, when a truly blog-worthy event happened. That funny-to-me encounter opened the flood gates and revealed something important about myself: I’m a story teller.
When I was faced with seemingly great ideas and tried to approach them straight on, they sucked. Looking back, I was taking that evil “expert” voice that is all about telling with no showing.
Pulling out a fresh page in my notebook, I started a new list (!): Remember when…
My cheeks ached from smiling so much as the memories tumbled in. I was a frightened two-year-old and an embarrassed grad student, pets from the past stopped by, as did much missed relatives and friends and some surprising adventures I’d completely forgotten about. That simple change in mindset from writer to teller of stories sparked an endless flow of ideas. These tiny nuggets begged to be written. My challenge became a joy and my love of writing returned. I became my over-achieving self and wrote a total of 34 posts!
When has serendipity (or the cops!) stopped by and changed your perspective for the better? or Am I alone in finding the expert tone triggers the inner rebellious teenager – “you aren’t the boss of me!”?
Grown Up, Now What? 
I’ve been working my way through a book, “A Writer’s Book of Days.” It has writing prompts for every day – and I’ve been pretty good about it – what they’ve done is open up these little nuggets of memories or paths to wander that I hadn’t thought of for a long time, like you say. Some have turned out to be rich. Some not so much. But the practice is good. And I’ve been working on a longer piece – so these take me out of that every morning, you know, a little bit of random story pieces outside my “work.” Anyway – I’ve enjoyed it, and many of them have been, like you’ve discovered in your writing, serendipitous. Don’t you love that?
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What a wonderful resource. I’ve put it in my queue. I want to keep up with my story telling, and that just might be my muse. It reminded me of the Writer’s Workshop, which once a week puts up a prompt and then encourages people to share their blog posts based on it. Here’s the link if you are interested: http://www.mamakatslosinit.com/writers-workshop-directions/ Once one of those grabs hold, I’ll put one up here.
I think it is great that you are using writing about something else to warm yourself up for your “work”. That never would have dawned on me as an approach.
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