Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities
no doubt have crept in;
forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely
and with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with
your old nonsense.
This day is all that is
good and fair.
It is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on yesterdays.
Emerson
Ten years….of writing, reflecting, and posting.
This blog has morphed from a class blog (2004), to a runner’s diary, to a tech teacher’s tips for teachers, to a writer’s journal, to my progress with letterpress.
June is always a time to reflect, at least for a former teacher. It makes me think about Annie Dillard’s comment:
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
I’m trying to picture myself years from now, thrashing about, wondering if the way I’ve spent my days matters.
I’ve been thinking a lot about feedback lately. In our writing/arts studio, we want creative people to feel free to explore and play–with words, paint, fiber.
For some of us, that’s enough. But others are looking for more, for feedback to finish/publish/sell a project.
So we’ve created different spaces for our various stages of production. If we’re exploring an idea, learning a new skill, or simply letting our creative side bloom, we go to Our Words or an Art Experience. If we need to know whether our project needs refining, polishing, or even tossing, we attend a Writing Workout or perhaps a private consultation with an artist.
But taking constructive feedback is difficult. Many of us struggle with perfectionism. We have trouble failing.
I love the 30/90 percent idea I read about this morning on 42floors.com:
We call it Thirty Percent Feedback. It’s a trick I learned from our investor, Seth Lieberman. It came about because I once asked him for feedback on a product mockup, and he asked if I felt like I was ninety percent done or thirty percent done. If I was ninety percent done, he would try to correct me on every little detail possible because otherwise a typo might make it into production. But if I had told him I was only thirty percent done, he would gloss over the tiny mistakes, knowing that I would correct them later. He would engage in broader conversations about what the product should be.
I think writers often don’t recognize we are at 30%, rather than 90%. We begin to focus on commas, when we should be reworking language (or revising the heck out of something).
I love giving labels to ideas.
Do you remember that old television show “What’s My Line?” I’m showing my age here, but the show came to mind as I thought about how I write. That is, what is my voice?
I’ve had a break from focused writing the past few months as I’ve helped open a business. Now that I have time to dive back into it, I am reconsidering how to stay in a comfortable voice and not try to mimic someone else. This isn’t a problem for me most of the time. But every once in a while, I find myself slipping into a voice I don’t recognize, usually when I am trying to squeeze something out of nothing.
Recently I bought myself a gorgeous block cut print to post in my studio, a reminder of who I am and what I want to say.
“Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go.”
~ Natalie Goldberg
