Some Sort of Writing Workout

I don’t even have a topic for this post. I just know that I’m always moved by ideas and thoughts, and they often stay with me just for a little while, long enough to bend my perspectives and plant the urge for a post, but not enough for me to actually shape them. It’s always so frustrating.

I pretended not to care for years. I would just embrace the idea whenever it came, played with it for a bit, and then let it go without even trying to keep some of its essence. This experience has always reminded me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on creativity and the way she describes the creative process and the dark and hunting process of being able to actually shape an idea into a blog post.

It is clearly a defense mechanism, avoiding the thought of “why aren’t you writing about this?!” and to fill it with even more blame, let’s say I did write something about an idea, my thinking would be “why in English, don’t you ever feel like writing in Spanish?” It’s exhausting, so not writing at all feels much easier.

But avoiding it doesn’t mean I don’t think of it, and the fight against my wish for creating something through words and communicating something I’m understanding, discovering, or testing is too exhausting to keep having. So why not just write stuff? In whatever shape, in whichever language, public or not, I’ll just write.

Now, I recently read an incredible blog post that motivated me to write and post this in less than an hour (without caring much about content), and in it, this guy talked about the importance of building a habit and trying to post at least once a week. He also suggested not to write about the struggles of putting together a blog post and sticking to it, so I’ll quickly move away from that line of thought because I have a feeling that’s what I’m getting to, hah!

I’ll just finish up with today’s inspiring moments:

• One of my students cheering me up when I told him my NaNoWriMo word count…
• A conversation I had with colleagues about the reasons behind this new way of empowering children rather than punishing them.
• The hug filled with admiration and appreciation I gave my friend Raluca as I told her how fantastic her Math Stations idea was.
• The moment I realized how much I missed my Spanish-speaking connection as I listened to one of Erika De La Vega podcast’s episodes.
• Trying to shut down work-related thoughts, and thinking how much I wish we all celebrated each other more.
• Using the voice-memo app to try to capture these ideas that may as well be lame or useless, and feeling awkward as I record stuff while I shop for groceries.

To end this rant, I’ll share a question one of my students asked today. We were sharing questions that we felt safe asking, knowing we might not get an answer. She said, “why does my head think of all these things?”

Oh, girl, I hear you.