Wednesday, January 30, 2013

My so-called new year's resolution

I'm not big on new year's resolutions and never have been. However, I have nothing against deciding to try to do something fun and/or creative every day for a year. I took a photo almost every day in 2010 (350 out of 365 days) and found it to be great for my creativity. In 2011, I tried doing a video a day, but I had bitten off more than I could chew with that one and I gave it up after two months. I started 2012 by taking four photos a day and putting them into a grid, but that also became more work than enjoyment, so I decided to let that go and just take a lot of photos and post them on instagram. Around that time I was also losing interest in flickr and instagram was really tickling my fancy. (I'm morsels on instagram, by the way.)

This year I'm doing something different. I'm attempting to write every day. I use an app called Day One that allows me to post from my phone or my laptop. I have a couple of book plans in the works, but I haven't been able to get it up for them lately. For the past couple weeks, I've just been trying to journal privately every day. I haven't been very successful (doing it about 5 days out of 7), but it's been a good exercise. Initially I had planned to work on the book/s every day, not just write about my day. But since I had not been feeling the love for those book ideas, I figured journaling was the only way I was going to get any writing done. As the days passed I was feeling this real urge to do some creative writing. But about what? Coming up with story ideas every day is not going to happen, I know that. And then I had an ah-ha moment.

What I've been doing for the past couple days is what I'm calling free writing. I imagine a character in a simple situation. Or I see someone on the street doing something as routine as unlocking the gate to a store. And I just start writing about him. I don't worry about where it's going. I just write. So far it's been hugely enjoyable! I have no idea if this is "a thing" that other writers do. I'm sure it is not something I invented. Who knows, maybe one of these characters will turn into something more. I won't worry about that right now, though. For now, I'm just saving each one in a folder in Evernote.