Showing up

This is a personal exercise in journaling and a public exercise in accountability. I'm interested in chronicling my writing process, partly to keep a record for my own future reference, and partly to find meaning in the way I spend my days. My hope is that as a result of doing this in a public space, two things will happen. One, I will be motivated to work hard, like a kid who wants to post a gold star on the Awesome Board, and two, I'll find solidarity with other artists who are working to make the thing they love and the thing they do for money one and the same. If this interests, inspires, or motivates anybody else, sweet! If not, no worries. There are about a billion other blogs you can turn to for anything you like.

I considered calling my blog "Showing Up" after Woody Allen's famous line, "Eighty percent of success is showing up," but success isn't really what I'm concerned with here. If you want to read about success, you can check out my friend Lacy's awesome blog: A Year of Dubious Success. She inspired me to do this, and if I can make my blog one tenth as interesting as hers, I will be a smiley girl.


No, I'm concerned with motivation, why we show up to do the things we do every single freaking day. Did I mention I'm in Chicago, and we've had so little sunlight this winter that I just bought a fake sun to put on my desk? I did. A real, live fake sun from Verilux. It's called a Happy Light, and I'll keep you updated on how happy it makes me. It made this girl so happy, her hair went sideways.

I write, and write, and write, and I hope that I will finish my work in progress. I believe that I will. Most of the time. Until I don't. And that makes it harder to write. And I hate it when people complain about writing, because if you don't want to do it, just don't. And still, some days it's hard. So I'm trying to focus less on product and more on process. If I show up every day, tiny bit by tiny bit, I'll get it done.

And now, in spite of everything I just said about product -- but hey, churning out the words is part of the process -- my word count for the day: 1,401