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First of all, I need an idea.  Then I have to sit and think about the idea.  Sometimes free-writing helps (you just start writing and see where it takes you).  Other times, I have to go about my day doing all the things and ideas start to come so when I sit down to write I’ve got close to a draft in my head.  Brushing Blondie’s tail, watching the goats, walking with Teddy- these are the things that often open up creative thinking the most.  Sometimes ideas are sparked by a conversation with someone.  Random ideas or ideas based on something they’ve said or that we are working on.  When there’s a need out there and multiple conversations happen around that need.  Sometimes the ideas come from something I’ve read- novels, poems, books about counseling or trains or history or horses or dogs or well, lots of reading happens in my life.  Sometimes the ideas just come.  And sometimes, they seem to stay away.  Writer’s block can set in and things just get stopped up.  It’s like there’s a big empty blank space up there in my brain and nothing’s moving or happening.  Other times there’s so much going on up there that there’s no way I can type that fast or have an idea for long enough to really get it turned into something worth writing about.  Today is a day where I have sat down to write with no idea identified and a need to get something drafted and ready to go out.  I’ve just begun typing about the process and hoping that it turns into something.  Sometimes it does.  And, sometimes it does not.  I am not sure what today’s efforts are going to turn into so I’ve given myself permission to write the proverbial shitty first-draft.  This takes the pressure off and allows things to come.  Or not come because that’s okay too.  There’s no worries or need for perfection; no pressure to create the thing that’s going to go viral and change a bunch of lives.  Whoa there!  No pressure.  So I just keep typing and I see where this goes. 

I am thinking about how much has changed over the last year.  And how this has resulted in a change in thinking and perspective and priorities.  How I’ve stopped putting up with some things, and started to practice different self-care where I actually go and do things.  It’s been rather brilliant actually.  Open to opportunities and finding peace in quiet moments.  Sometimes with that peace comes memories that bring tears.  Sometimes in these quiet moments comes motivation to get going and doing.  Life happens in these moments and then builds up from there.

And I am also getting lost in the moment- looking out the window behind my computer.  Looking at the plants and watching for any birds coming for a visit either to the yard or to the feeder.  I hung a bluebird feeder a while back but it attracts mostly chickadees and tufted titmice- no bluebirds on it yet.  In a few more weeks it will be time to put out the hummingbird and oriole feeders.  Spring has sprung and summer will be right around the corner.  Part of me is looking forward to summer and part of me is dreading the arrival of August and with it the potential for memories from the year before.  It feels like forever and no time at all rolled into one. 

I see that the cursor jumped around and so I went back to fix a sentence or two and now am here in a new paragraph with still not much to say…

Except that arriving now at this last paragraph, I hope you can see that the process of writing like the process of change is non-linear and sometimes takes sidetrips or circle-backs or roundabouts or walkabouts or any number of jumps before you arrive at the proverbial point.  When you walk away from reading this, I hope you will feel comfortable and confident in giving yourself permission to trust the process and to write the shitty first draft.  When you go back and revise your creation, you can think about the words you want to use or the spacing or the transitions from one paragraph to the next.  But the point when you first sit down is not to create the masterpiece- it is to create a start.