In my last year of high school, I was part of the yearbook team where many fond memories were had.

At the onset of the year, however, our teachers were on “work-to-rule,” meaning no extra-curriculars. The first, and most frequent, question people had for us is whether we could still do a yearbook without sports.

It was a valid question, considering the proliferation of sports in high school culture. But, to us, the answer was obvious:

Of course!

When we sat down to outline the sections, we discovered there is still a lot that goes on in a school beyond sports. in fact, most of those other things are minimized, forgotten or ignored to make space for sports.

The work-to-rule was lifted partway through the year, but sports still didn’t become the dominant theme. The pages of the ignored and forgotten were getting their time in the sun.

As we look to today, we are now answering questions that were only theoretical to ask:

Can you have a church with no buildings or gatherings?
Can you work from home all the time?
Can we ever ignore profits to bring manufacturing back?
Can we still have a functioning society?
What really matters?

It seems that when we eliminate the sacred cows of society, we discover a lot that has been ignored or forgotten.

They are finally getting their time in the sun.

It’s a fabrication for the minds of academia. A justification of their position as teachers of literature.

It’s a sterilization of a creative process, broken into fragmented pieces. it neglects the fluidity and interconnectedness of all the parts.

Prewrite (brainstorm and outline) – Draft – Revise – Edit – Publish

It neglects that everyone works in a different way.

It even starts with a faulty premise: brainstorming.

Coming up with ideas doesn’t happen in a vacuum. it’s not something you sit down with and magically spark new ideas. They happen in response to things and while in the process of what you’re doing.

Some writers dive right in and brainstorm as they go.
Others will do it, then ignore everything they’ve written.

We’re not even at the writing itself and this process is shown to be broken.

Outlining, revising, editing… some international bestselling and award winning authors write clean first drafts (no outlines), then lie about their process.

Why?

It’s what people expect to hear.

There’s a conditioning that writing has to follow a certain process.

However, writing is an art and like all creative endeavours, there’s no formulaic process you need to follow.

By mid-morning, I was ready to call it in and hope everyone in my home got to the end unscathed.

After a walk with the kids, I decided to re-frame my mood by counting my blessings:

I woke up in a house within a lovely neighbourhood to a loving family. I’m getting time to purely focus on my spouse and children. There is a fridge and pantry full of food and my wife and I are privileged that we get to work from home during this quarantine.

Anything beyond that is gravy and there’s so much gravy being poured that it’s impossible to see the mashed potatoes.

The day turned around.

It ended on such a nice note that I felt a sense of peace in my heart that hadn’t been there for some time.

Counting your blessings–always a good antidote to a rough morning.

Stay off the Internet the morning of April first, or succumb to the endless practical jokes.

This year, on this day:

My Internet is down.
The world is on lockdown.
Economies are crashing.
Every body is in survival mode.

I can’t tell if this is the best time for a practical joke or the best time for a laugh.

Probably the former.

Sometimes, there isn’t anything spectacular for me to say.
No insight to expand upon.
No thought that is festering.
Nothing but a blank page.

Yet, I come to that page with humility.

It beckons me to be there because it knows the only way forward is to write some more.

It challenges me to fill it and like a runner who hit the wall, promises something rewarding if I keep pushing through.

One pen stroke is all it takes to spark an idea, but it won’t let me know which one it is. I must persist.

Sometimes, even with persistence, it doesn’t happen on that page.

There is no magic this time.

Sometimes, it’s just a blank page.

A blank page with words.

I received a heads-up that my post from Lifehack (written in 2013, I think) was referenced again in an article.

I find it neat how something I wrote seven years ago is still being discovered and referenced. It’s a testament to the wisdom of putting your work out there and leaving it there.

It’s also a fascinating trip in time to see where my head and my writing was at the time. There are edits I’d love to make, but that’s what growth is all about.

You need to see where you’ve been.

Leaving it out there and letting it be is something I’ve been improving upon. Its only requirement is to let go of your insecurities and keep going.

This is the fourth iteration of my blogging. The other three have been removed from history, which is a regret because there were probably gems in there. After all, the I don’t get to decide what people will like, what works and what doesn’t.

The article in reference outperformed (and still outperform) all my other posts on Lifehack by a significant margin.

However, I get to watch the long tail of this blog grow.

For the first few years, I would’ve been lucky to have fifty visitors a month. Now I get to see the many articles people gravitate towards on a daily basis. It’s a joy to be able to share a part of myself and watch my own growth as it happens.

I’ve been here for almost a thousand posts and I’m looking to grow a thousand more.

It’s a long tail indeed.

If all you can do is read ten pages: read ten.

If all you can do is write a few lines: write them.

If all you can do is five push-ups: do five.

If all you can do is walk around the block: walk around the block.

If all you can do is cut back on one chip: cut back on one chip.

If all you can do is clear your sink: clear your sink.

We get too weighed down by what we want to do because it doesn’t match what we can do.

If we just start doing what we can, we’ll eventually end up doing what we want.

I’ve heard this quote a few times and while I find it amusing, there’s an underlying theme I want to address.

“Real” writing.

Also included in that category is “real” art.

Let’s talk about graffiti for a second.

I grew up in a city that was so horribly planned, you just assumed you’d get stuck waiting for a train on your way to anywhere. Seriously–even downtown rush hour wasn’t immune.

What made it bearable was watching for graffiti. Some of it was nothing more than vandalism, but some–amazing. Yes, it was still vandalism, but it showcased what graffiti could become.

The artist can take the medium and elevate it.

Like graffiti, blogging is a medium that anybody can access. Some treat it as no more than a glorified journal without concern for content or its presentation. Others pontificate journalistic writing, but are nothing more than spastic armchair critics who merely post their opinions masquerading as research.

I’ll ignore the endless marketing blogs with the same formulaic copy-writing meant to funnel you int some product. I’ll try not to be too harsh as I got suckered into that methodology for a while, but did learn some useful writing tips along the way.

Some blogs, though, are game changers.

They open a world that a long forgotten non-fiction book collecting dust somewhere cannot.

They engage conversation, provoke rebuttals and gather communities.

They’re not mean to replace journal articles or books (though many books today are blog posts with hundreds of filler pages), but become its own medium to showcase what writing can be.

I consider it snobbery to prefix anything with “real.”

“Real” world.
“Real” books.
“Real” writing.
“Real” sports.
“Real” art.
etc.

There’s no such categorization.

There’s just the level it’s been elevated to in its execution.