well, i made it!  i hit my goal of writing 300 blog posts before my birthday…and then i stopped posting.  not really, but almost!  it just happened to be a very busy week: VBS every afternoon and three (!) classes running concurrently for me.  add in summer temperatures that are getting warmer every day, and my mornings have been quite full.  but i wanted to write a bit about what i learned this year.

• give yourself margin.  my goal was to write 300 posts in a year, not to write every day.  i had a day off every week plus some sick days built in.  that made it feel a lot more spacious and a lot less like work.
• write a series.  i wrote two–one about keeping advent and one about celebrating the 50 days of Easter.  a series offers focus for the writing.  it also relieves the tedium of always reporting what’s happening in our days because there’s not all that much variation: we went to the library!  we took a walk!  read this neat article!  and when you’ve got the long year still in front of you, it feels so good to map out a few days or weeks of writing and maybe even write a few posts early and schedule them to appear on the appointed day.  there’s nothing like waking up and already having a post up!
• participate online.  of course there are the few sites you always visit, but what about throwing your net a little wider?  this year i joined twitter.  i know!  but it’s become a great way for me to find new people outside my normal homeschool mama blog universe.  i also went deeper.  also for the first time this year i participated in a MOOC.  again, it’s something good to write about, something a little outside my normal byways to think about.  i wasn’t taking the classes to improve my blogging, but all the writing and thinking spilled over and made this place richer.
• write for 31 days.   i also linked my Advent series with The Nester’s 31 Days series.  serious bump in traffic there!  i don’t know how many of you are still reading all these months later, but i’m happy to have you!  the series gives you a smaller canvas to work on and helps build momentum.  it’s really my #1 piece of advice.  the convergence of ModPo and 31 Days last October made it easy for me to write nearly every day.
• lower your standards.  William Stafford says that when you’re writing and you get stuck, you should lower your standards and keep going.  what passes as a blog post certainly got a bit looser this year!  i started posting more pictures, more quotes.  and every week i had two mini-series–one called Sabbath Rest, a simple image and quote from the lectionary for that day, and one featuring a quote from the archives of the homeschooling magazine called Growing Without Schooling.  these posts were restorative to me.  i got to spend time reading, pondering, looking.  i hope they were of use to you too!

so those are my five bullet points of advice.  go forth and write!  i can’t wait to see what *you* make!

:: can you see Jojo’s tiny footprints in the newly turned soil? ::

this week i came across a most wonderful midsummer adventure–a poetry writing MOOC made by the folks at the Iowa Writers Workshop.  i found the course a few days late and have been catching up this week.  it’s been an extra treat to run across ModPo people in the forums and get a chance to read their poems.  each week there are two videos by established poets sharing a bit of their process or other ideas, then an assignment to write a poem using the poet’s ideas and prompts.  the videos alone are worth your time if you crave good words and the chance to listen to people deeply involved in the lifetime process of confronting the page.

i also listened to the introductory recording from a Gerard Manley Hopkins retreat produced by Pray-As-You-Go.  i love the idea of employing lectio divina on something other than scripture.  when i hear people doing close readings of poems, i think that’s what theology should be–a deep wrestling with all the places of consonance and assonance in the text.  this retreat is theologians using poetry.  i am certainly going to keep on listening.

finally, i saw the title of a book, haven’t actually laid eyes on the book itself!  it’s called Praying in Color.  basically doodling or zentangling while praying.  i am very interested in this practice as coloring has become such a powerful way for us to reflect and meditate.  it’s coming via interlibrary loan!