Checking in with myself and with 'ghostly' readers

Today will be my only blog post this week as we travel to Seattle to enjoy food, rain, and cold, but (most important) family time. I did want to note that this is #202 in my little personal blogging experiment, which reminds me that life, progress, change, learning, and so much more tends to happen over time. Sometimes we need to look back to even realize what has been going on that brought us to wherever we are.

I tend to write about 450 words per post (and I know I should write tighter and leaner... but I am the first audience for my blog and each morning that number of words basically fills one screen on Blogger. That's as good a reason as any to settle on a particular length.

So my first 201 posts weigh in at about 90,000 words. That's at least one novel (though without a clear plot, characters, etc.). 

I have come to appreciate the satisfaction of writing five days per week, with no particular pressure to perform or to meet expectations or to argue some point of view. 

My hope for my writing students is that their fluidity as writers can change as they write more regularly but without the pressures of so many high stakes assignments. I have often wondered if I could teach a writing class based on the idea of writing 300-400 words per day, five days a week, with the instructor (me) simply responding to each post and focusing on one or two strengths or areas for improvement.

It is important to practice correctly, of course -- otherwise we are simply cementing in place bad habits -- and consistent practice may be the key to long-term success.

The more we write, the more we forget to consider the pressures of writing and the difficulties of getting what is in our heads onto a screen or page. I had a few college classes in which my entire grade was determined by a midterm and a final exam (they involved "blue books" that we tried to fill up since we all suspected that the poor grad students doing the marking would be impressed by sheer volume). 

Two tests determining a grade for an entire term automatically created pressure and stress. And that strategy continues today, I am sure, in classrooms around the globe. 

But you don't become an accomplished pianist by practicing once ever two weeks for six hours. And you don't become a great cook by only creating Thanksgiving dinner each year.

Writing is thinking made visible, and we should be thinking every day, and lots of times per day. 

A group of people I meet with each week was discussing core values this morning and I now realize that regular practice and regular reflection are part of some core value of mine.

Now I need to think about exactly what to call that core value.