No prompt waiting for me in my inbox this morning, and to tell you the truth, I'm a little concerned about what is to become of this here blog. How am I to go on, without a prescribed set of topics on which to write. No, lets be honest: I'm not worried about the state of this blog, I'm worried about the state of my very writerhood, because the truth is that I haven't considered myself a writer for a very long time. Aside from letters and scattered journal entries, I do very little writing on a daily basis. And, how I missed it. I missed neurotically scribbling notes on the back of a farm brochure, the bus jolting my pen into writing strange, otherworldly symbols, like crop circles against the pictures of carrots and leafy greens.
Here's what I propose (to myself, mostly, as my readership is miniscule, but hello if you are reading this): how about a weekly rumination, or at the very least a paragraph here and there to accompany the photos I post (the above photo notwithstanding because, really, it speaks for itself--some godly litter for you). I love picture-heavy lifestyle blogs as much as the next person, but for my own personal purposes, I need to be involved in something a little bit--wordier. I have an Outlook calendar printed and some possible topics noted on a sticky pad. Perhaps I can figure out some way to delegate my own prompts. We shall see. I'm terrible at delegation, truth be told. And, even worse at following instruction.
In the meantime, you can find what I believe to be my personal best among the Scintilla posts here:
- Get On the Grind Like Clockwork (Day 3, Prompt A: Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song)
- My People (Day 7, Prompt A: List the tribes you belong to: cultural, personal, literary, you get the drift. Talk about the experience of being in your element with your tribes.)
- Sitting on Porches on Rainy Days (Day 8, Prompt A: What are your simplest pleasures? Go beyond description and into showing the experience of each indulgence.)
And follows are the days that I very clearly (to myself at least) struggled--days when neither prompt (we had two choices daily) spoke to me even an iota:
- A Boho Bedroom for Little Warriors (Day 4, Prompt A: Talk about your childhood bedroom. Did you share? Slam the door? Let someone in you shouldn't have? Where did you hide things?)
- On a Particular Pet Peeve (Day 10, Prompt A: Pet peeves. We've all got 'em. What are yours? Write about a time when you experienced one so vividly that we all join your army of defiance.) [The other prompt choice was heartbreak, a subject which I will not be touching with a ten foot pole any time soon. In fact, a subject which I will not be touching until I'm forced to when and if offspring of my own suffer heartbreaks or cause heartbreaks of their own.]
Prompt that I very clearly cheated on:
- A Story Never Told, Almost [Not Even Remotely] True (Day 11, Prompt B: Tell a story that you haven't told yet. Give it a different ending than the one that really happened. Don't tell us where you start changing things. Just go.) This particular story I had scribbled during a class around 2006-ish and found in the annals of my misguided college career while trying to search for inspiration on this very prompt. I got more than inspiration. I downright plagairized my past self.
But can I just say how freaking proud I am of myself that I missed not one single day of this project? I actually committed myself to something and then followed through. This is huge for me. I am a notorious flake. (Just wait until you hear about the outcome of Lent--hah.)
And, therein of course lies the very purpose of this blog (other than to share photos with out-of-state family; Hi Pop Pop! Hi Aunt Susie!), to hold myself dern accountable to something. I do want my life to go places, you know, but was born without the lobe in my brain which controls goal orientation and ambition, I suspect.
Will I participate in Scintilla again next year? Yes. Will I spend the next two weeks catching up on Scintilla posts I missed from other people who participated? Yes. Will I participate in Reverb again this winter? Yes. Will you be subjected to various to-do lists and plans? Probably.
