souldare

In the beginning
GOD formed heaven and earth
Let there be new life

In the beginning
All things came into being–
GOD with us unveiled

(Haikus based on Genesis 1 & John 1 composed by KSR)

In the past, I have set an intention to create daily. This year, when I unwrapped this lovely Christmas gift from my son and his wife, it confirmed my desire to commit to a daily writing practice in 2019. (Also timely because I have added a writing path to my 2019 souldare classes, which start in February.) This morning, I made my breakfast and coffee, and settled into to reading the intro of 365 Journal Writing Ideas Plus 400 Quotes by Rossi Fox.

The author created a welcoming atmosphere for both beginners and veteran journal writers. I appreciated the idea to name your journal, so as to build a personal dialogue within its pages, a named confidante of sorts. Mine is named, 2019. I skipped the first page of the journal to overcome any fear of “messing” up the new, fresh pages. (I have practiced keeping a journal long enough that I seldom have to worry about the paralyzing effect of the blank page, but it’s still good advice to skip the first page, and get going.) I seldom go back and fill in the first page, but you could go back and give the journal a title or create a table of contents, if you like. Fox recommends going back and gluing a magazine image there.

Here’s his simple list of things that one needs to get started:

“A journal or notebook, a pen that doesn’t bleed through the page …and Courage to take on the ‘blank page.’” Fox suggests other optional supplies to add visual interest and texture to a journal, but I leave that to your discretion. That said, I was interested in the fact that he supported using visual elements in a writing journal. I was especially helped by the idea to cover up writing that you want to keep personal by gluing a magazine page over the writing.

I thought to start this year off, I’d occasionally share some musings from my daily writing practice.

Here is my first entry into 2019 (written from the perspective of the year speaking to me):

I am 2019! Welcome. I am full of unknowns, yet you have intentions, routines and rituals you will attempt to keep. Keep an open mind, heart and soul to receive what I have to offer. You can guess that there could be challenges, joys, adventures, heartaches, misunderstandings, losses and gains, because you have experienced almost 54 of my past iterations.

That’s it. A short message, but I enjoyed the process.

The first writing idea/prompt from the book was to write about happiness. Fox shares this goal for daily writing: “Aim to fill an entire page.” That seems doable.

What makes you happy?