Off topic

Hello again. I finally caught up on finishing my posts for last month, turned round – and it was mid April! So I’d better get underway with ‘this’ month.

It’s been a busy time, the last month – birthday party, school fair, actual birthday, family trip abroad…and in the meantime, building work, and the tail end of another in a series of (thankfully mostly shortlived) family illnesses.

Part of my thinking, as I was writing the rest of the March posts, was trying to work out what to write in April.  I have a little file of ideas for posts, and I kept going back through, trying to identify what theme to choose.

Let’s just say that committing to a theme for April seemed to be harder than I thought.  So if in doubt, go off topic – which in this case means a return to writing about writing, I think.

I’ve been reading a lot online, in the meantime. Some of it has been fun, some of it informational. Some,  just being grateful that others are out there, writing their thing, and sometimes their response to a (very) ‘full’ season brings unexpected balm to my own rather too intense spring.

(At least, I think it’s spring.  The flowers seem to think so. So far.)

One of the bloggers I’ve been reading wrote a great post where she described her desire to write at her ‘edge’ ie where she’s up to, rather than where she’s been.  And I think that sums up something of why it’s been so hard to get going with writing for April.

Trying to work my way round a range of themes has been good for me – and, for now, my yardstick is about pleasing myself when I write.

(I do also hit ‘Publish’, so I hope to please a few others along the way, if I can, but that’s not the basis on which I measure the way the writing is going.)

But this spring has brought a lot of change – some good, some very hard at the time. I am changing – so it’s not surprising that what I want to write about might change too.

So I’m planning to stick to the daily discipline of writing – because that feels right. I’m planning to keep going over the spring and summer, which are traditionally the points the writing dries up a bit.

And this month, I’m going to combine writing about where I am at – rather than be tied to a theme.  But because I’m starting mid month, I’m going to add in an extra post a day which is, in effect, a writing prompt of one kind or another.

Some of the these writing prompts are out there online, and pretty popular. Some I’ve come across in other contexts, but they’ll do to add a small amount of focus – as a springboard to some more creative writing.

I may be back to following my nose as I write – I don’t know. I plan to turn up and write, and see where it goes. Again. And if you fancy joining in on the creative writing prompts – feel free. I plan to. (Feel free, that is.)

Today’s writing prompt: six words.