Skillful Means – Over Three Months Old

I looked at the date this morning, while drinking my cappuccino and munching on a few dried figs, and realized that this blog, Skillful Means, is now well over three months old. I figured I should be consistent and write up a small third month retrospective to go along with my blog-reviews of the first two months:

Skillful Means is 30 Days Old – 30 Days in a Life – A Retrospective

Garden Schmarden: The Last Week of Nirvana – Stepping Into Uncertainty

In Retrospect

My life has certainly taken a very different direction from that of the first two months of this blog. One specific change is that I now have a full time job. In my last blog-retrospective article I described some of the fear that I had in not being able to continue the blog in the same way I had been. At that time, I once again challenged myself to writing something everyday for the next 30 days. When I look back at the last 30 days, I have had to wonder about the quantity verses quality issues. There have certainly been challenges and compromises to writing something everyday in the last 30 days.

Creative Energy

I think somewhere deep within me I have always fantasized about what it would be like to be a writer. The best advice that I have heard from many writers is to write everyday, possibly to write at the same time everyday, etc. Basically, the advice is for writers to make a daily habit out of the writing process.

Makes sense.

As I blundered my way into the blog process and wrote my first month’s worth of posts, I noticed that the amount of time I had for creative pursuits allowed me to keep about four to five posts written ahead. The ideas would constantly be rising, I would capture those ideas, and work on the ideas as the spirit moved me. Having four or five days of posts in advance would allow me to edit and morph those posts, allowing me to post the ones I liked the best, and the editing process would generate even more post ideas. This lead me to a number of beliefs about blogging, one of them is that if a person has the time, is creative, is gentle with themselves, and trusts in themselves, the ideas will flow and will be fun to share. I was thrilled with the idea that this is how it was working out for me.

If you want to explore your creative core and how it works, I would certainly recommend writing a blog.

Starting a full time job has certainly cut into the my idea generation. Having a full time job probably wouldn’t have hurt some of the creative flow if I was writing on work type topics. Since work topics wasn’t what I wanted to write about on this blog, that was not really been an option. If you read the other two retrospective posts you probably know that this blog had everything to do with exploring those things not work related. I have kept pretty focused on this one goal; only touching on work topics from time to time. For the most part, I wanted the blog content to have more of a entertaining value. Light and fluffy, interesting, a “something different” type content that I could entertain and share with myself as well friends.

Looking back, I had no real master plan. I considered personal focus type subject matter, closer to the “right now” rather than a verbal rational to the drama from my day to day. Although the blog would describe me at this point in my life, I wanted it to be less of a journal of daily chores and routine, but more of a journal of goals, ideals, and wonder; an exploration of what I consider some of the deeper things.

Work work work

Not that I couldn’t write authoritatively on the topics of my work. Of course I could. Writing about my experience on work would probably have some added benefit to my work. It’s possible it could add to my work ethic, and I could use this blog as a jumping off point for more business related endeavors connected to my work. The things is, if I needed that, it would be found in a different blog related to me in some other way.

In some ways I thought that this writing would provide me, and in some respects my friends with me, a balance of those other aspects of my life which I feel are more important than my work. Those things that I would really like placed on my gravestone, something like:

Dharma Voyager… she loved to blow bubbles on a sunny day, fly kites, and have deep conversations with friends. She treated her friends and family consistently, loved fearlessly, was just fun to be around, and will be deeply missed.

Not:

Dharma Voyager… responsible for bringing about great software solutions, and saving many a project with little or no recognition. Winning one difficult customer at a time. Known for doing what other’s just couldn’t. A real good sport.

See… probably just reading those two phrases changes the tone of everything. I’m shooting for something close to the first one in my life, I consider this blog as just one of the vehicles in my life I use to focus that positive energy.

So far so good…?

So have I kept up the goal? Yup… Has it been difficult? Well, yup.

Actually, my challenge setting mission of the first 30 days has continued relaxed and pretty much unhindered. I have been adding challenges slowly over time and I have been meeting old ones, which is very neat. There are certainly many more goals on the horizon for me, some I may or may not blog on, but I suspect that the goals will reach 20 at some point. The blog has definitely given me more of an opportunity to make them happen. I look at what I have accomplished in just three months and it makes other things seem much more doable.

Do I think the quality of the posts have been kept the same? Not really.

I have not been able to keep four or five posts ahead like I did when I had more time. Most evenings I’m writing the next morning’s post. I will on rushed occasions edit the post on the next day after a article has been posted. Also the lack of time has, I think, diminished some of the fun and personality in the post. My writing process often takes on a multiple phase pattern approach to writing a post that I will end up liking.

My Natural Writing Process

If I have enough time for my writing process (and when I have had enough time) this is what it tends to look like:

Phase 1 – Get the idea down:  Write down a one or two sentence idea. Let the idea simmer in my head a couple days. The simmering lets me know if the idea really applies and appeals to me. While the idea simmers it allows my brain to form connections from the simple idea to other things, giving me more context to write about.

Phase 2 – The Puke Draft: Get that original idea out in paragraph form. No pretty stuff, no frills; just paragraphs of ideas, filling out the bones of what I am writing, getting down a description of how I actually feel about the topic. During this process more ideas may come out during this process that I will note and get out of the way.

Phase 3 – Rewriting the Draft: The puke draft tends to be written in a real flat and not very personal style. Sometimes it just feels like one statement after the next, no real depth or width to them, having all the character of an instruction manual translated from a common Asian language. The third part of the process takes that “puke draft” and converts it into “my voice.” This is the difficult and fearless part of the process. The part that should let the reader sit in my seat while reading it, so that they no longer are just witnessing it from their eyes, but seeing and feeling it from my perspective regardless if the reader agrees with me or not.

I’m learning I have a couple voices, but I’m hoping that if someone read enough of my text in “my voice” they would start to recognize the writing and recognize the “me” in the writing. This what makes the difference I think in the comments that I have received for different posts. I think this is the described “honesty” that people have mentioned they have been appreciating in some of my articles. Writing at this level is the most rewarding to me, it is “what it is all about” when I can muster it. Writing in this way takes thoughtful care, presence, mindful dedication, lots of time and energy.

Phase 4 – Editing for grammar and content: This stuff takes more time, more than the first three parts of this process put together. Is the least fun, and is also why having a good editor can make something like this blog happen. I have been lucky to have a couple good people to help me out with some editing, and it has certainly helped, but having an editor requires me to keep a couple days ahead of the publish date with posts, which has been very difficult lately.

So… when I didn’t spend 9 hours a day focused on something other than the subjects I want to write about in this blog, my natural four step process could happen pretty smoothly. I guess this post may be an apology, or maybe it is just a thought process that may be able to get me to finish out the rest of the month with some rewarding posts. Smiles…

Plans

I never expected to write everyday, even during vacations, and weekends. I have written every single day because of the fun of the “everyday” goal. I may need to cut back on the weekend posting, or take a vacation from the blog for a week or so… Who knows? I’m just hoping it can be as much fun and rewarding as it has been.

The Job

For those of you who would want to know of such boring things as how the job is going, I would say good. This weekend I will be working on updating some paperwork to see if I can get a promotion. Yup, been on the job three weeks and I may be able to move up. It is a nice feeling if it really happens. I guess, so far so good on that part. I’ll tell you how it goes… nothing is definite.

Thanks…

Thanks, again, to all the kind people who have helped me in keeping this blog going, and of course for all of the kind words of encouragement. Without both the help and the encouragement I doubt I would be able to keep this blog going.

Namaste…

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