Twelve Blog Posts of Andrea (#1)

(ONE)
My one writing goal for 2020 is to publish on this blog once per month.  Today is the last day of the first month of the new year.  Better late than never is what they say. 

Actually my goal is to be the kind of person who writes for other people, not just for myself, this year.  I do not have a desire to publish a book, to write professionally or even to be known as such.  I do want to be the kind of writer who writes everyday, who uses her writing to make a mark in her world, who writes for posterity and to sort out what I know to be true and what I am still learning.  I do writerly things like capture my thoughts and reactions to the world.  I put my bum in a chair, and I make myself write.  I keep a notebook and have the notes app on my phone organized so that I can quickly and easily find the writing ideas I collect as I live.  Yet, I show up here, and I am without anything meaningful to share with you.  I try to be a woman of my word.  I am just going to write until something worthwhile comes out.  Writing is that way.  If you stay with it long enough, something usually materializes. 

I cannot figure out what's going on with me lately when it comes to writing for myself in way that allows me to have something to share with the world.  The hypocrisy of the thing is that we ask students to do it every.single.day.  This is how I came to write for this blog.  I wanted to be a real teacher of writing by living the life I asked my students to live in the classroom.  At least once per marking period, we require them to share some narrative, essay or poetry with the world.  We ask them to write with feeling and thoughtfulness.  We ask them to open up their hearts or their minds and let the rest of us look inside.  And you know what, most of the time, the kids find something meaningful to share.  So what's my problem.  I've got lots of stories.  I know this is true because I talk my husband's ear off sometimes sharing them.  I have many, many opinions about many, many topics.  Name a topic.  I am certain I have a thought or at the very least a question.  For example, while watching a movie or television I have to literally remind myself to stay focused on the task at hand because my curiosity will get piqued by something a character mentions then I am off running down the Google rabbit-hole asking questions and seeking answers...

This is as far as I got on 1/31/20.  In six short weeks later, the bottom fell out of 2020, and so did my goal of publishing 12 blog posts. It is now December 26, and I've got five days to fulfill my goal.  "Why, given the year we have had?" Because I said I would.  Here's to (ONE) down.  Only eleven to go.

-Andrea