Tag: writing

200 Feet at a Time

On By MezzoSherriIn Meta-Blogging, Self-Acceptance, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

There’s a metaphor I’ve been exceedingly fond of for quite a number of years. It’s an image that helps pop the balloon of any expectation that you need to have your entire journey mapped out in detail before you’re able to progress and grow and live and all that juicy stuff.

It’s this simple truth. When you’re driving at night, it’s not like the car headlights are showing you the entire route from Point A to Point B. They’re just showing you the next step on the road. But one after the other, seeing each next step a couple hundred feet at a time—well, that’s enough to get you wherever you need to go.

night-driving-black-and-white

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Taking Flight into the 20s

On By MezzoSherriIn Gratitudes and Thank Yous, Memoir, Meta-Blogging2 Comments

So Sherri, how did that 2019 blogging experiment of yours end up?

I daresay the fact that my last post was almost-literally six months ago answers that question.

Its not that surprising. Shortly after that last post went up, I joined the RED Sisterhood team, helping support my wonderful teacher and mentor, Kristin Sweeting Morelli, in sharing her genius for women’s empowerment and women stepping into their feminine power.

Since I’m an integrous person and my primary professional responsibility is to my “9-to-5” job, I’ve only been helping Kristin out on evenings and weekends. But, when you add those evening and weekend hours on top of my 9-to-5 schedule and on top of the evening and weekend hours I sometimes(1) have to give to my non-profit job — well, it’s unsurprising I haven’t had a lot of recreational writing time.

So why am I back here?

Call it a New Year’s thing.

2019 departures

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Am I Blue?

On By MezzoSherriIn Memoir, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself, The Subtle Body, The Voices in My Head, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I know why I didn’t post on Tuesday night: I had a fairly long Zoom call with some friends, and then I had some crucial prep-work to do for a Wednesday morning meeting.

I’m less sure about why I didn’t post last night. I stopped watching TV at 7 PM, I came into my “Goddess room,” I sat down at my computer, opened up WordPress, and then. . . . nothing much happened.

It’s not like it was the first night where I didn’t have an easy topic: no fresh books or movies, no yoga class, no introspective insights. But I’ve had other nights without an obvious topic, and I’ve still shown up to the page and written something. Heck, that’s what the whole “From the Hat” category is about!

When all is said and done, I just couldn’t summon up the energy, the will, last night to write anything.

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Keep On Keepin’ On

On By MezzoSherriIn Memoir, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

Well, it turns out I didn’t go to yoga last night. But it wasn’t because I was feeling self-critical or anything like that.

Instead, late afternoon/early evening yesterday found me a really good work groove, making progress on the several hundred tasks that need doing in order to meet the half-dozen-or-so important deadlines I have between now and next Wednesday. And that momentum was momentum worth keeping up.

It’s funny how these deadline seasons at work make me act more like a college student than I ever did when I was actually in college.

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Taking this Show on the Road

On By MezzoSherriIn Memoir, Meta-Blogging, The Voices in My Head1 Comment

The next ten days or so are going to be a true acid test for this new “write every day” pledge. We’ve got a quick weekend trip to see the Harry Potter Exhibit in NYC, and then the exact next day after getting home from that, I’m off for a six-day business trip.*

Ages ago, when I had a long vacation planned, I wrote a short series of things to auto-post while I was abroad. (Admittedly, the execution of that idea was a touch shaky, but hey: points for trying?) I’m sure the almost-daily ritual of me whining about not having a surplus of blogging ideas will give you a solid read on the current situation.

No, Virginia, I do not have any extra posts in the bank.

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Reading My Will(ingness)

On By MezzoSherriIn Memoir, Meta-Blogging, The Voices in My HeadLeave a comment

Okay, I hadn’t quite expected to roll up the sidewalks here for an entire month while doing my Shakespearian NaBloPoMo experiment.*

In retrospect, perhaps I should have seen that coming. After all, my November schedule–full-time job, 2 “college courses”** (one of which is still ongoing), choir, regular Shakespeare blogging, and all the ephemera of embodied life (cooking, laundry, sleep, etc.)–was pretty rich.

With 20/20 hindsight, it’s not terrifically surprising I didn’t have a lot of extra time to keep the momentum going here at JALC.

But here’s the dirty little confession about it all: I didn’t exactly try that hard to keep the wheels turning here. And when I say “I didn’t try that hard,” what I really mean is I didn’t try at all.

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NaMo: Yes, No, Maybe So?

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Meta-Blogging, Pop Goes the Culture, Topics of Study1 Comment

Mr. Mezzo has been spending the last week making preparations for his imminent descent in NaNoWriMo. For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, NaNoWriMo is a (mostly) virtual event in which a bunch of writers band together and pledge to write a 50,000 word novel during the course of November. (Hence the name: NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.* This will be the second time he’s done it, and I’m wondering if I should maybe do something of my own in solidarity.

Now, I’m not crazy enough to do NaNoWriMo. For starters, there’s the fact that I live in a Newtonian universe where time and energy are finite resources. I still have those two classes I’m finishing up, plus choir, plus the fact that I’m just now beginning to pull myself out of the black hole I recently fell into. More importantly than those practicalities is the fact that I don’t currently have a strong idea for a book. I know I’ll write one someday — but this day is not that day. (Or “this month is not that month.” Something like that.)

But NaBloPoMo? That’s a entirely different kettle of tea.

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A Hurricane of Textuality

On By MezzoSherriIn Life-Long Learning, Memoir, Meta-Blogging1 Comment

I guess I have some super-secret MezzoSherri playbook, where the private definition of “I’m going to post a couple times a week” means, instead:

I’m going to take two weeks off where I don’t write a damn thing at all.

I guess radio silence is sometimes unavoidable.

In part, this has been the result of living in a fortnight-long perfect storm. The last 16 days have brought me the following waves, in sequential yet overlapping order: deadlines, travel, more deadlines, illness, more travel. (Whee!!!)

Take a system already on the low slope of one’s personal energy curve and put her through that precise sequence of events and you pretty much have a textbook case of “something’s gotta give.”

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The Three F’s

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Memoir, Meta-Blogging, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, The Pressure to Fix Myself2 Comments

The Day 2 challenge for Blogging 101 is about editing your blog title and tag line. To me, it’s an additive exercise to yesterday’s “who am I and why am I writing” meditation — now just taken that one next step of distilling that mission statement to its essence in order to create a title and tagline that, to quote the assignment, “give visitors context and help them decide to stick around.”

Obviously, being as I am already 5 years and/or 6 months into the game, I have a well-established blog title,* and it’s one I’m not eager to change. The question of tagline, though, is wide open for consideration, and I’m happy to talk about both these elements after the jump.

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In Medias Manifesto

On By MezzoSherriIn Blogging Challenges, Flagrantly Feminist, Life-Long Learning, Meta-Blogging, Practicing in the Heart, Self-Acceptance, Spirituality, Topics of Study2 Comments

Because I have decided that 5 hours of sleep per weeknight is just too much of a luxury, I have decided to enroll in another challenge over at WordPress’s Blogging U. Blogging 101 is intended for individuals right in the start-up phases of bloggy creation. This invitation to register articulates the deliverables in this fashion:

On Day 30, you’ll have six (or more!) published posts and a handful of drafts, a customized theme that reflects your personality, a small but growing audience, a good grasp of blogging etiquette — and a bunch of new online friends.

So, considering that I first founded JALC some 5 years ago, and revived it more than 6 months ago, I am either well behind the times or way ahead of the game on this one. Still, I think it’ll be a good exercise for me.

I’ve been in recent conversations about the value of design thinking, and the ways that taking the time to step back and question your automatic habits and questions can be a good way to unlock a more intentional creativity. I see the Blogging 101 container as a way for me to foster that sort of intentionality here on JALC.

So, here we go…

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