Practically Prose

As I begin, and promptly fail my challenge, I learned something. When "they" say "write something everyday," I don't think they mean "write something that you are proud to publish online everyday." 

Although I haven't been able to publish even one article in the first 3 days of the challenge, I have written at least a little bit each day, and I think that is exactly where I should be right now. 

Post 1 of the challenge is postponed until tomorrow. But don't fret! Here's a preview:

Having spent my life being told, and telling myself, that there are no redo's/undo's/restarts/resets/do-overs/etc. in life, I've recently come to a realization.

This web log, or "blog" for short, is a sandbox for ideas: fiction, non-fiction, stories, how-to's, reviews, essays, poems, etc. But more than simply a place for my personal mind vomit, I created this repository of words in hopes that it will provide a focus for my ambitions. During the past few years, I somehow got it into my head that I could write for a living. Whether that be as an attorney, a blogger, a columnist, or whatever, I haven't figured out yet, but in all this time, I have yet to follow that often shared advice for writers: write something, anything, once-a-day (or at least regularly).

I can blame my failure to do so on many things but I want to believe that my main obstacle is something easily solved, that every blog that I have created was too focused. I had blogs for food reviews, food that I made or was trying to make, rants, scam e-mails reviews, blogging. LiveJournal, Xanga, MySpace, Blogger, Blogspot, Tumblr. And as I sat here thinking about what to focus my next blog on (I was thinking technology and internet related legal issues), it dawned on me that I would probably lose interest in that blog after a few weeks too.

No, if I want to continue to write, I have to give myself the freedom to write what I want. I have to stop holding myself to stringent frameworks defined during fleeting moments of inspiration.

So here's my goal, and my challenge to myself: write one thing (at least), every single day, or as often as possible. With my track record, I am confident that this will be beyond difficult. But that's the point of a challenge, right? And hopefully, even if this blog never sees its first birthday, it will help me accomplish something, or at the very least, feel accomplished.

Oh, and the realization that I came to: no, maybe we don't have "extra lives," and maybe we can't "undo" mistakes, but that doesn't matter. Every day is a new day. Every day is another chance to fix past wrongs, and take new steps in, hopefully, the right direction. And today, I'm taking mine.