writing every day

I have been trying to write every day. Sometimes I tell myself that I will write for ten minutes, while other times I tell myself I have to fill two full pages of my notebook. Honestly, most of it is crap. I write about how I don't know what to write or I write about what is out my front window. I always pray that no one will happen upon this notebook and know it was mine. Every so often a sentence feels smooth and clear as the pen moves across the page or a word stands out and I think I must use it again. But most of the time it is crap.

But that is fine. Because I do it every day. I am not always setting out to write perfect prose every time but working the muscles that are in desperate need of a exercise. And it has become a little bit easier when I want to write a letter to my daughter on her birthday to sit down and write something that I am not totally embarrassed about. It becomes a little more frequently that I write a line or two that feel good as I am writing it.

So I will keep doing in everyday. And maybe in a while it won't just be a sentence here or there but a whole page.

"When I have students who have written many pages and read them in class, and the writing is not all necessarily good but I see they are exploring their minds for material, I am glad. I know those people will continue and are not just obsessed with 'hot' writing, but are in the process of practice. They are raking their minds and taking their shallow thinking and turning it over. If we continue to work with this raw matter, it will draw us deeper and deeper into ourselves, but not in a neurotic way. We will begin to see the rich garden we have inside us and use that for writing."

"We must continue to work the compost pile, enriching it and making it fertile so that something beautiful may bloom and so that our writing muscles are in good shape to ride the universe when it moves through us."

From the book Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (page 16).

Note: Don't forget about the current writing prompt! And once we have a new writing prompt posted, you can always go back to old ones and post your responses to them!