saluting the faithful
Supposedly, it takes three weeks to change a habit.* Or three weeks to give yourself a running start, anyway. These little 21-day observational writing exercises started out as a way to shake me out of a funk. But I soon recognized that they could be used for all kinds of other stuff, like...shaking me out of an observational not-writing funk.
Anyway, here they are. Each series is in reverse chronological order, because that's how this blogging thing works. But the series are listed in order of popularity, because... Well, because for all my hard-won, goddamned enlightenment, I understand that there's a way things work.
Good enough
The perfect is the enemy of the good. It's also not even an actual thing, just a construct of the same mind that wakes up five minutes before I do every day to get a jump on running the show. "Good enough" was an attempt to ship, regardless of my feelings on ripeness—both for the 21-day stretch, and to create my first physical piece of writing for sale.
Embracing the tiny
It's hard for me to start things. And really hard for me to restart things. This series was a kinder, gentler reboot of daily writing after a long absence from writing long, dense pieces. Keep it tiny; keep it going.
Selling My Crap on eBay
It's also hard for me to let go of things. So when I decided to sell a bunch of items I no longer needed, wanted, or used, I decided to let them go with individual stories on the blog.
Get Your Motor Runnin'
I made a bunch of high-falutin' plans to work work work and really increase my output in 2009. Because I was in dire need of some kick-startin' (but not "g" droppin'!), I started off the year with this intense series of Go! Go! GO! posts. And by "intense", I mean mostly goofy.
Staying Awake in Seattle
In the fall of 2008, I hauled my mixed-up, L.A. ass 1,100 miles to the north in the hope of finding some clarity, and maybe banging out a novel. I came back a month later with no novel but a whole lot of other hard-won, okay, FUN-won knowledge.
Thank you, sir! May I have another?!
A three-week program on cultivating gratitude. People liked this one a lot.
Scanning My #$@! Photos
I thought this would be a fun way to share some personal memories and, at the same time, save a precious few against the horrible inevitability of natural disaster (we're talking lots of Kodak Instamatic stock from the 1960s & 1970s). Watch for recurring cameos of my disturbing, "Where's Waldo?"-like hand.
Stop! Sucking!
Yeah, yeah, I have a tendency towards existential crises. I swear, I try to turn them into something useful, not just whiny navel-gazing.
Cheering the Hell Up
The series that started it all. The BF (rightly) called me on a fearsome bout of crankiness; I documented my efforts to snap out of it on communicatrix-dot-com and a tradition was born.
The Zen of Everything
Start anywhere. Examine. Process. Move forward. These 21 days each focus on one "way in"--some big, some small. Some miniscule. (And some, ridiculous.)
Cleaning My Damned Apartment
Sometimes, your space gets away from you. Every good FlyLady fan will tell you that consistent application is the road to salvation.
Nerd Love
With the exception of the popular "How Not to Write a Sucky Newsletter" entry, not as much how-to nerdery as I'd hoped.
Image by matt.hinsa via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license. Go, Big Red!
UPDATED: February 18, 2016
*Since launching this series of series, I've gotten hold of dispiriting information that, in fact, it takes more like 60 days to change a habit. Which kind of sucks, but is also kind of a relief, since for a long time I was all, "WTF and shit!? I'm four weeks into changing x and NOTHING?" So, there you go. It's still an excellent amount of time with which to launch the change of a habit, and I've used that timeframe successfully to quit smoking (since ), stop myself from maniacally obsessing over x and quit biting my cuticles (three months, as of this writing, and counting!)