A few years ago I found this site that I was sure would push me to write more. I kept up with it for a whopping nine days. I’m sure my rapid retreat from this exercise was due to a few things.
First of all, it was January. It’s a month that starts off slowly here, and then suddenly it’s galloping at breakneck speeds. I’m pretty sure that was a first-string factor in my defection. Secondly, I think I ran out of things to say. It’s not that I used up all my words. I just used them up on the topic at hand in the constraints of the exercise.
The goal was to write as many words as there were days that you’d been practicing this exercise. For example, on day one–I was limited to one word. On day 703, I would’ve written 703 words. It was a good way to start. It forces word choice to be more precise. After all, on day three I was limited to three words.
The site recently shut down. They sent me a notice to save my words somewhere else if I wanted to keep them. I’d actually forgotten all about those words. I printed them before they disappeared into the realms of cyberspace. Soon after their commitment to ink and paper, they were lost in the morass of paper that is my desk. I found them today. I decided to commit them to this corner of cyberspace lest they be swallowed by my desk forevermore.
Day 1Â Â Â Â Â Missing.
Day 2Â Â Â Â Â It’s gone.
Day 3Â Â Â Â Â I need it.
Day 4Â Â Â Â Â Was it ever here?
Day 5Â Â Â Â Â Is it possible to miss,
Day 6Â Â Â Â Â miss something you’ve never had? Longing
Day 7Â Â Â Â Â is one thing. Longing and missing aren’t
Day 8Â Â Â Â Â necessarily synonymous. Can I really miss something I’ve
Day 9Â Â Â Â only longed for and never had? I think so.
And there it is–my one more word. It seems fitting I rediscovered it on my desk on the eve of Valentine’s Day. However, that dissection is for another day.
What have you thought was a good idea only to quickly abandon it?
photo of paper, pen and hand courtesy of brianloc on rgbstock.com; words and heart added on picnik.com
3 responses to “One More”
Soul, I really like this. You are a very good poet.
It would take too long to enumerate all the things I started and never finished. Nowadays, they mostly have to do with cleaning up or organizing something in the house. Started boxes of things to sort or give away…
I, too, have some writings I never finished. Most of them I started during adolescence. There’s a retelling of “Sleeping Beauty,” a fantasy story, a silly story and maybe one or two more… I found them when I was going through one of my boxes at Mom’s house in 2010. I brought them here, and they’re still right by my desk. Unfinished. Well, except for “Sleeping Beauty” which just needs polishing.
Love, Soul
PS Happy Balentinies.
I still have illusions of being a mommy blogger. But, with a saturated market I doubt that will ever happen. I started. Oh, yes, I started : realitycheck101.blogspot.com. But life went faster and I quit. For now I stick to our private family blog and am quite happy with that.
Soul, thank you! You are the poet. I used to watch you write and wonder how in the world poems flowed from you. I feel quite inadequate at it, but once in a while there’s a poem inside me that just needs to escape. Boxes are the bane of my existence. Well, one of them. I love a good cardboard box. I suppose I think I’m going to have to move sooner than later, so I should keep them. And then I don’t move. Then I wind up putting things in them. Then I can’t find the box or the things. It’s a sad cycle. I’m trying to force myself to put them out with the recycling. It’s a battle. Happy Balentinies to you, too! I hope you’ve had a good love day.
Tirzah–I don’t know if you’ll ever be a mommy blogger who pushes products on people, but you have a lot of great insights to share about the mommy-hood. Without being a mom, I enjoyed what you had to say on realitycheck. It’s still a good idea, but maybe it’s a good idea for another time.