Saturday, February 5, 2011

750words

Saturday morning.  Listening to Morning Edition on NPR and doing some morning journaling from bed...looking forward to listening to This American Life.   This past week my friend Amy sent me a link to a web site called 750Words.  The founder of the program writes about the site saying this:
I've long been inspired by an idea I first learned about in The Artist's Way called morning pages. Morning pages are three pages of writing done every day, typically encouraged to be in "long hand", typically done in the morning, that can be about anything and everything that comes into your head. It's about getting it all out of your head, and is not supposed to be edited or censored in any way. The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.(...)
I've used the exercise as a great way to think out loud without having to worry about half-formed ideas, random tangents, private stuff, and all the other things in our heads that we often filter out before ever voicing them or writing about them. It's a daily brain dump. Over time, I've found that it's also very helpful as a tool to get thoughts going that have become stuck, or to help get to the bottom of a rotten mood.
 So, he developed the site to inspire writing 750 words every day.  It uses a motivational point system to encourage you to write every day.  You get badges for writing days in a row, for writing without getting distracted, etc.  It is also private so, it lets me get back to just writing because I enjoy it not worrying that people might end up reading it.  It's interesting because getting out some of the mixed up ideas that I've had has made it easier for me to want to come back to my blog again to chat with y'all about life.

The other thing that has helped is that I've finally received my dad's old computer.  My computer died a while back and since I couldn't afford to get a new one my computer time was a bit more limited.  Since I've received my dad's I have a bit more comfort using it to write.  The other thing is that we went back to school after Christmas break and then had to get back into the routine of school.  I've also been trying to make some major decisions about what I'm going to do next year (work related) and I've spent a lot of time thinking about that.  Now, I think I've made a decision and I think that I'm back.  I hope that is true.

1 comment:

will said...

hannha mckeeth! you are very prolific, my friend. Just wrote my first 750 words, and I was 20 wpm behind you. I guess that was to be expected though. I hope yall are doing well!

live the questions now... R.M. Rilke