A New Direction

So, for once in my life I am actually going to write a post that I told you I was going to write. Like I wrote in my last post, I am thinking of going a different way with my writing.

Disclaimer: I haven't actually decided on this idea. It's sort of like breaking up. Yes, maybe you think a certain other person is attractive, but you're not actually leaving your boyfriend/girlfriend for that other person. You're breaking up because the relationship itself isn't working out, not because you fell in love with someone else.

Photo by hashmil on Flickr

I'm not sure that analogy made sense, but basically, I'm not "leaving" travel writing because I'm infatuated with another genre. I'm leaving it because it's not right for me. And now I'm dating around in other genres, and there is one that particularly intrigues me.

Biographies.

If you're a student (or possibly if you're not a student), that one word alone might be enough to make you drowsy. Your immediate reaction? Boring. My immediate reaction to your immediate reaction? Exactly. 

Letting Go of a Dream

I am stepping away from my dream of being a travel writer.

Wait. Hear me out.

This is not a "boo-hoo-poor-me" post. Far from it. I've been asking myself some hard questions and reevaluating my long- and short-term goals. I've been asking myself what I really want.

When I was single, the idea of being a travel writer seemed practically perfect in every way. I knew I wanted to write, and I knew I wanted to travel. What else did I need to know? I could get paid to travel! What more could I possibly want???

Changes in Life...but Not the Blog

Seeing as it's been exactly a month since I last posted, I decided to get back here and write again.

For once, I actually have a really good reason to have temporarily ignored my blog. I got engaged. And since then, my life has been rather a whirlwind.

I started thinking about the way I've been using my blog. Since I've gotten engaged, I've gotten way more into stuff I wasn't quite so interested in before. I always liked cooking, but now I cook four times a week, at least. I clean a lot more. And I'm actually interested in all those little crafty projects and little fix-it tips. I have no problem with this. I'm glad I'm starting to become genuinely interested in all the domestic things I never really cared about before. But as soon as I thought about that with reference to my blogging, I had to cringe. Is that what would happen to my blog? It would be lost in the blogosphere as just another domestic "mommy blog," with endlessly cheery anecdotes about kids, homemade decorations, and "delicious yet oh-so-easy and only 60 calories!" recipes? Would I have to resign myself to more than three exclamation points per post? (Or whatever the rule is.) Would my blog--without me even bearing children--end up just another...mommy blog?! (There goes my first allotted exclamation point.)

Just checking in...

Disregard the date above this post. This post counts for SATURDAY, not Sunday, since I haven't actually gone to sleep yet. Ahem.

Lately I have been working on building up habits. Habits like...blogging every day. And eating healthy. And exercising. And getting my homework done before midnight. (Which tonight, unfortunately, did not happen...but not for lack of trying!)

The wonderful thing about habits is that once you have them, it's easy to do the right thing. The nasty thing about habits is that it's so much easier to get into bad habits than it is to break them. And it's so much harder to get into good habits than it is to break them. 


For more talk about habits, I recommend The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. What he says about habits, and how to get into the very best habits, has really stuck with me in the past few years since I've read the book. I just discovered another great tool to help build good habits called HabitCal. It's an extremely simple, easy-to-use (and completely free) tool that just helps you track how well you're doing with your habits. If you're like me and you like to check a box, cross something off, or create anything else visual to show how well you're doing, HabitCal is great. It's awesome to click a box green! (You'll have to try it to see what I mean.)

So, that's what I've been up to the past couple days. Trying to get into lots of good habits that I've lost. Today I've been swamped with homework and other important things...not to mention, I just realized that the next book I've been reading for the reading challenge is due in 2 days! And I still have 150 pages left! So hopefully I'll be able to finish the rest of that over the next couple of days, and then I'll have a blog post up about it. I've been enjoying the book immensely (check out my Goodreads widget...it shouldn't be too hard to figure out why). I can't wait to write about it!

A quick note about progress on NaBloPoMo. I have been loving it so far. Blogging every day has really gotten me into a blogging frame of mind. I always have lots of ideas for posts now, whereas before I used to avoid blogging because I "couldn't think of anything to write about." Writing so much has kept me a lot more...sane. (And trust me, I've needed it.)

Last, I would like to thank you all so much for reading and commenting! I keep close track of the page views of the blog and of each post, and each one really counts to me. And getting comments--even small ones--totally makes my day! Thank you for being part of this blogging journey with me. (I feel like I've been using the word "journey" way too much lately...is that super corny or what?) I'm learning a lot about writing, and I wouldn't have the motivation to do it without your support!

Thank you! And have a wonderful day!

Joining National Blog Month!

For a while now, I've been reading about blogging challenges where bloggers commit to blogging daily for a month. I've read the testimonials--blogging daily helps bloggers to improve their blogging at lightning speed and gets them more readers. (Unlike the other interesting idea I've heard--from a very inexperienced blogger--that it's better not to give your readers too much material all at once...are we playing hard-to-get?)

So, as the next month approaches, and as I learn more about the awesome website BlogHer, I'm going to take the plunge and blog every day during the month of July! Think I can do it? Well, I hope so! So, put on your seatbelts and let's get rolling!

You may also notice that the theme of the month is "Kids." ...Yeah, maybe not super appropriate for a single college student with basically no kids in her everyday life. I probably won't be writing a whole lot about kids. But, as a nod to the theme, I will start the challenge off with a post about kids on July 1st. From there on out, though, no promises--who knows what will come out of my typing fingers.

Of course, this will mean that I won't have as much time to deeply ponder the things I write. Lately, my posts have been written over the course of several days, and I go over and revise them a few times before they get posted. Posts during July won't be quite as well-thought-out, and will probably be shorter as well. But I hope that you'll find a little time to jump on and read my posts and, if you feel so inclined, leave your thoughts in a comment. I welcome comments and I always personally respond to each comment.

I'm excited to get blogging! Happy NaBloPoMo!

What is Creativity?

As you know, I love Elizabeth Gilbert, and I love what she has to say here about creativity. This made me reflect on a question I've thought about quite often in the past few years: what is creativity? Where does it come from? Are some people more creative than others?

I was originally inclined to say that anyone and everyone could be a creative genius if they really worked at it. I don't like to put people in boxes and say that some people are just simply more creative than others. I like to think that quality work depends on consistent effort more than anything else.

But I realized that it isn't quite so cut and dried. Take Mozart. Mozart, a child prodigy, began composing his first symphonies when he was about four or five years old. Now, really. How many four-year-olds have you ever met who could compose a symphony? Or paint a masterpiece? Or write a poem that was remotely good? Or even cook their own breakfast?

Clearly, not just anyone can be a Mozart. Even if I decided to start devoting every second of my day for the rest of my life to learning to compose, I wouldn't be able to go back in time and make myself that way as a child. Maybe Mozart had a bit of a jump start--he was just born with talent, while the rest of us are a little more average when it comes to natural talent. But then we run into a problem: that's saying that we're each born with a level of creativity, and implying that nothing we can ever do will ever change that level. Maybe we can reduce our creativity by ignoring it, but no matter what we do, we can never exceed our maximum capacity.

I don't know about you, but that conclusion is a little hard for me to swallow. Doesn't effort mean anything at all?

Okay. Maybe I have an unhealthy obsession with this topic. Like I said, I've been thinking about this for years. I've actually been working on this post for a couple of weeks, trying to organize my thoughts, and it's just occurred to me that maybe what I need to be writing about--rather than speculating about the origin of creativity which I probably won't come to any kind of conclusion on anyway--is why I care about it so much.