Showing Up

If you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, you may have noticed that I don’t really have a theme here beyond updating readers on my 30-day challenges. As much as I love Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Melton (momastery.com), I’m not them and I don’t want to be. They are both good writers who, with time and patience, became great writers with interwoven topics following common threads which developed into awesome messages which earned them huge followings. I believe this happened because they valued their own voice and then practiced this craft in order to have their voice heard. In that order.

I’m getting better about the first part – valuing what I have to say – but in the meantime it doesn’t hurt to get a jumpstart on the second part. There are two voices in my head that convince me I should get on with the business of being me and sharing it through the written word. These are not the voices of doubt on KFKD, nor the voices of Helen or Charlie, these are the voices of actual people who don’t live between my ears.

The first one is actually the memory of a voice and strangely enough the words weren’t even spoken to me, but to my mother. I guess it’s been a couple a years now, but apparently my mother ran into a former teacher of mine somewhere and after they chatted a bit, this former teacher asked my mother, “Did that daughter of yours ever become a writer?” When my mother told me about this conversation, I was very surprised. I couldn't have guessed that this teacher would have remembered me as anything more than the daughter of a colleague (my mom is a teacher too) that she happened to teach in 10th grade English. She had never given me any reason to believe she thought there was anything special about me or my writing. In fact, I don’t remember this teacher fondly because she gave me my first B. My mom and I have always joked that the first B was really a gift because it proved to me that I would survive my imperfection…but in still pisses me off. I remember her grading my end of the year exam…the one that would determine my semester grade…and I needed a 98 to make an A. I stood there over her shoulder (because she let me) and as she wrote 96 at the top of my paper, I detected a faint smile…like it made her happy that I didn’t achieve my goal. I sulked back to my desk and then spent the next two years of high school fake-smiling at her in the hall anytime I passed her classroom. And now I find out she thought I had potential? Way to inspire lady…a decade or two late.

But I now hear her question in a combination of her voice and my mother’s…fairly frequently. 

“Did that daughter of yours ever become a writer?”

The second voice is that of Elizabeth Gilbert’s…and it’s not from Eat Pray Love. I’ve never read that. It’s her actual voice from a Ted Talk she gave in 2009 called “Your Elusive Creative Genius.” It’s really good, it almost makes me want to read that book… almost. I generally try not to read books that lots of people gush over…although I have aspirations to actually write a book that lots of people gush over so I don’t know what that’s about. Anyway, the talk is a really compelling discussion about creative genius and where it comes from. She suggests that since the Renaissance we’ve so distorted the origins of creative genius that many of our artist-types end up psychological basket-cases. Her ideas are great and she presents them in a really entertaining way so I’m not going to spoil it…go watch it. The piece of it that sticks with me...that I have developed into a mantra (one that I believe even if I haven’t always followed it) is the importance of simply showing up on a regular basis to let your creative muse (wherever that resides) do its thing.

Showing up is first…consistent output is second.

So…”Did that daughter of yours ever become a writer?” Not yet, she’s still working on showing up. I just need to make it a habit.

There are a lot of people out there making claims about how long it takes for something to become a habit – most commonly it’s 14 or 21 days. I know myself to be particularly stubborn about…well…everything. That’s why these 30-day challenges seem like a good fit and why for the really important habit, I’m going to give it an entire year. A new habit each month (if I continue them past the 30 day commitment) that will hopefully help me think more clearly, live more fully, and be more productive – a word I dislike* but will use here for the sake of brevity. And then at the end of a year, I will have shown up to let the writing magic happen every single day so that will have hopefully become a habit as well. I’ve even set it up so that the 12^th and final 30-day challenge is to write 1800 words toward a novel each day…even if what I have at the end sucks. I’m going to give it the whole 30 days and I’ll be ready to because I will have practiced showing up for the preceding 11 months.

What could go wrong, right?

On the no-sugar front…despite the 90+ degree high temperatures we are experiencing here in September, fall allergy season still seems to be arriving right on time. I woke up with a sinus headache and a stuffy nose. I’m glad I bought that giant bottle of Ibuprofen. On the up side, I’m not craving sugar as often and when I do, I’m indulging in grapes. They seem really sweet when I eat them…too sweet, really…and so I end up not wanting too many. That’s a positive. I’d be lying though if I didn’t express my disappointment at not seeing more of a change in my body. Weight loss wasn’t the only reason I chose the sugar fast as my first challenge or even the most important reason, but I was hoping that at the very least my clothes might fit differently. Or that running would become easier. Or that I would just feel more of a difference. Oh well…not giving up.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about this other goal that I set back in May…really back in February…no actually, it was 5 years ago. And I’m still trying to achieve it. This one you all can help me with.

Until tomorrow…

*I equate “productivity” with just output for the sake of output without any thought given to its necessity. It places a premium on busy-ness or making stuff. When we say people are “productive members of society”, we are valuing them for what they do and not for who they are. That leads us to measure a person’s worth in dollar signs and I’m not a fan of that. That’s why I bristle at the use of the word “productive”. I think we can value people for who they are and what they do so there’s got to be a better word. If there is and you know it...put it in the comments, please.