may you write much

it wasn't supposed to be like this. i had been looking forward to dec. 1 because i knew REVERB would be back in action, and i would have something to write about. last year REVERB helped me launch my blog in earnest, giving me ideas each day (well, i didn't listen every day) to get my brain to thinking about the year 2010 and how i had lived it. so i was thinking just the other day, realizing that my blog posts had lagged for a few weeks, that REVERB was coming so i need not worry. i'd be back to writing in no time.

and then i get an email on wednesday saying REVERB is no more. the writers got tired. wanted to write different stuff. and just when i was getting started. and then this: what about doing your own REVERB?  what about inviting the writers (and the non-writers) out there who you know to join in the conversation? 

well, why not indeed?

so. since i had just a day's notice, and best intentions being what they are, i'm a day late.

but i can ask a question that has been noodling in my mind of late: what new did you do this year to challenge yourself? to shake up the mix that is you?

if i had been asked this question a few months ago, i would have found it challenging to answer. my life is pretty mundane. walk the dog, read the paper, pour coffee then the diet coke and head to work. upload and update, edit and remind, take a picture or two, have lunch a lot, pick up the dog, nuzzle, then figure out what to cook. cook. clean up. watch the Sing Off, Glee, The Middle, Modern Family, on down the line. then Sunday  church, lunch with friends (add in a couple of naps) and 60 Minutes, then Dexter and Homeland on Sunday, and that's pretty much my week. (there is a lot of reading in between the doing, books and blogs and newspapers and directions.) then we start all over again on Monday morning. every now and then an adult child will show up to brighten our spaces, or we will take an unexpected side trip, but for the most part — and especially in winter — life is snuggled up tight in the mundane.

and i love it all. love the ritual, the people i am with, the times when i'm alone. the dog. all of it.

but... i do wonder what it would be like to shake up the mix.

a few weeks ago, i did something new. i painted. not like a room or a piece of furniture or anything like that. i painted — a painting. my purple room friend Lee and i, challenged by a gift certificate to this new spot for my latest birthday, took up paints and brush and paper plate palette and painted something pretty. and pretty recognizable.

and this week we added a few more friends and did it again.

a year ago, i would never have considered such, content it appeared, i was in the comfort of what i could already create. what i was known for.

i can't give too much away! santa might just need it

then i picked up the paints and brushes and lost myself for a couple of hours. and it was fun.

i used to love to color, and the favorite day in school was the one when the teacher let us stir the tempera paint. when my kids were small, i'd sit with them while they painted with watercolor tablets or dipped their whole hands into finger paints, but i rarely picked up the brush myself. i wander through art galleries and wonder how in the world artists come up with just those color combinations, that texture on the page. and i have always envied my artist friends, whose work can be enjoyed in an instant. though art, surely, should be wandered through, writing has to be for the reader to appreciate the story in the words assembled there.  

so what does all this mean for you?

this month i want you to share with me. post a comment on my blog to answer my question of the day. or of you have a blog, post it there and send me the link. calling all writers i know out there, and even folks who don't think they can. each day i'll try to answer the question myself, to get you started. and we'll see where it goes.

consider this a gift to yourself. i know participating in REVERB last year was indeed a gift to me.

once again, here's the question: what new did you do this year to challenge yourself? to shake up the mix that is you?

may you write much!

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.