Blogtober is back

Blogtober is back! It’s back! It’s back! She shouts out into the emptiness. The silence is deafening and then…her daughter lets out an expletive and says, ‘Are you serious mum? Again? It was horrible last time!’

I don’t remember my first Blogtober being horrible. In fact, my recollection is that it was the complete opposite, I loved it. Perhaps it was a little uncomfortable for others in the house, because ‘mum’ went missing every evening to write. But this year I plan to wake up early to do my writing, build it into my morning routine before my meditation, before my stretches. To keep my evenings free after my lovely day job to hang out with my family. In between running meditation and writing classes, completing a fantastic course I am loving, writing a graphic novel and preparing for a podcast launch, posting a daily gratefulness post and recording meditations for a corporate client.

Yikes! Sometimes our capacity is greater than we think. Or maybe, I am delusional. Or perhaps I just have had more time on my hands, because we have been in lockdown.

Well, this year, because there is more on than last year, I plan to be very gentle on myself as I do Blogtober. I will start by just taking each day as it comes. This morning I have achieved what I set out to do. I have woken early and written something for Blogtober. If this is my first and last post, so be it. If it is one of a handful, that is OK, and if it is one of thirty one others, well thats cool too. No expectations. And they may not all be long form blog posts, I might throw a few poems in there too, just for fun.

Even though I started with a similar approach last year, once you start, it is hard to stop. Because it feels good. It feels good to achieve something you set out to do each day for your writing. It feels good to write. Blogtober is such a great way to stretch yourself as a writer. And it is so enjoyable when you do it with others, with other writers, as a community. This year, I am delighted that most of the crew from the publication The Garden, are signing up: the gorgeous Takako Hoshi and three fab dudes: Steve Brophy, Rob Gronbeck and Benny Wallington. The amazingly talented Leslie Lau will not be joining us this year, due to some exciting projects he is working on (and I didn’t really give these guys much notice), but he is with us in spirit. He will be there, cheering us all on, each day. I hope he will sign up next year. Not that there is anywhere to actually sign up. You just do it. There are no rules, other than to post one blog post a day for October. That’s right, thirty one blog posts in thirty one days. And if not thirty one, you post as many as you want, using Blogtober as a friend to encourage you to exercise your writing.

Speaking to Steve earlier this week, I was saying how I loved Blogtober for the way it was like an ‘accountability partner’. It brings me to the writing table each day. Accurate, but I didn’t like describing it this way, it was the wrong language. ‘Accountability’ partner sounds a little stern and strict. Steve suggested the term ‘Abhyasa’. He shared with me, that he likes to think of his daily writing as turning up for practice, like when you come to your yoga mat. Every day. For a long period of time. And that is exactly what it is. An opportunity to turn up. To practice. Every day. For a long(ish) period of time (thirty-one days isn’t exactly long). A practice exploring the art of writing. To let my inner writer show up and show me what she’s got.

And she had some stuff last year. She showed me she could write faster than I thought. She showed what she wrote each day was good enough. It didn’t need to be laboured over for weeks trying to make it perfect. She showed me she thought deeply about some stuff. And she could articulate it, in a way that connected with others. I was surprised and delighted by how engaged my friends, family and strangers were with my Blogtober posts last year, and how even a year later I will get a comment turn up on one of the posts, thanking me, or asking me to continue sharing. Continue writing. A wonderful acknowledgment. (My daughter recently told me, this is something I tend to seek. But that my friends, is a topic for another post for another day. Perhaps.)

I read a great quote in January this year, that has followed me around like a lovely stray dog you have welcomed into your home. ‘When you choose to do something, you are choosing not to do something else.’ This really landed for me. And with this came an immediate halt to housework, as I didn’t want to choose that over hanging out with family or doing some of the things I love. Interestingly, the house keeps itself pretty clean. Who would have guessed, that others clean up after themselves when you stop doing it for them. And so, I am choosing thirty-one days of Blogtober over tidying up, cleaning…and a little bit of sleep.

So get ready guys. It is going to be a little messy around the place for a while (and it may not just be physical mess, there may be some emotional mess too) and there could be even a little bit of deliriousness going around. (Last year my glorious hubby nicknamed me Blogzombie. I think that is a wonderfully appropriate name to have during Blogtober and I will no doubt live up to my nickname this year.)

This morning I am up an hour earlier. I have come to my mat. My writing table. My practice. And I have come and gently stretched. I have written my first piece. Abyhasa is ‘a practice of fixing one’s own self in a given attitude.’ Blogtober is ‘my practice of fixing my own self in the attitude of a writer.’ For that I am grateful. And writers write, they don’t clean. I am grateful for that too.