Discipline

I've decided. I need to create. I have too many pipe dreams; too many projects left undone (or, more likely, unstarted); too many ideas left unexpressed. They will all stay that way until I do something about them. So I am going to do something. If you want to consider it a New Year's Resolution, that's one way of looking at it. To me, it is just a question of setting time aside. Establishing a routine. If not now, when?

So here is the plan. I will devote 30 minutes a day to writing/working on this page. I'm not going to unequivocally state that it will not be more than 30 minutes a day. I tend to write a lot (when I write). It ideally will never be less than 30 minutes a day. That way, I will get my writing practice in.

Practice? Yes, part of the idea of this is that if I do not write, then nothing will come of it. One cannot be a writer if one never writes. Does this mean that I aim to be a writer? Yes, I suppose on some level it does. What kind of writing? I don't know for certain. But any writing practice at all will help me recover whatever writing skills I may once have had.

What will I write about here? Anything that comes to mind. Some thing, every day. At least then I'll be providing regular content. I expect that it will be a hodge podge of thoughts about things that interest me. I may end up focusing on one area. I may not. We'll see where it goes.

As part of the writing practice, I may also revise or add on to previous posts. My father once told me a story, as we were driving to my cousin's house in Vermont, about a poet who was staying at an artist's colony we passed on the way. The poet had come out of his room for afternoon tea after having spent hours working in his room, when a young poet staying at the same place approached him, full of enthusiasm.

"I've completed 15 pages of my epic this morning," said the young poet, flush with excitement. "What have you done?"

"I," replied the stern older poet, "have put a hyphen between the words 'fox' and 'trot.' Then, I removed it."

I, too, may spend my thirty minutes editing my posts, reconsidering them, re-writing them. When I do, I will keep the original post up, but will re-post the edited version as a new post, so you can see the work in progress. Not that you'd want to. But, at this point, this website has no audience. It is a website for me, therefore, not for the reader. At some point that may change, and then I am sure that I will change. But until then, I get to be selfish and do things my way.

Until tomorrow. . .