I started the year without any writing goals.
I had stopped my daily haiku practice in the fall of 2022 after 600 consecutive days. I had no intention of resuming it in the new year, or of replacing it with anything else.
Then my friend Carolee Bennett, whose blog you should read, sent me an article on New Year’s Day about people with a daily haiku practice. Since it was the first day of the year, a day that fit nicely into my desire for projects to begin and end at obvious times, I decided to write a haiku. I also set a task on my to-do list that read simply: “haiku.”
I continued to write a daily haiku until January 18, when I didn’t. Then I wrote one on January 19. Then nothing until January 23. And so on. During the month I also wrote some longer poems when the inspiration visited me.
A few days ago, realizing that the daily haiku practice was reminding me of why I stopped last year, I changed the task on my daily to-do list from “haiku” to “write something.” That’s what I’m trying to do each day. It doesn’t need to be a haiku or a poem or a story or any specific thing. I just need to write something. I guess I mean something more than a photo caption or a tweet. Something that exists for its own sake, if that makes any sense.
Most days I’ve written something. As time passes, I’ll probably come up with a stronger feeling about what “write something” means to me. For now, though, I like that it’s nebulous. The idea is to just keep using my brain and heart via the medium of words. The rest will work itself out.
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