writer’s block

Prompt: Do you want to open your attitude?

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

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PROMPT: Do you believe that practice makes perfect?

This quote generates all sorts of considering and sorting and restructuring, leading me to ponder my perceptions of Practice, Progress, and Perfect.

Practice.  Progress.  Perfect.  What constitutes enough Practice?  How do I effectively measure Progress?  How do I define Perfect? How many words on the page are enough for the day such that I feel that I made progress on my novella?  Should I edit as I write or leave that for another time?  When will I know that the book is perfect and ready for publishing?  Where within the art of writing are my feelings of reward and self-actualization?  When is enough enough?  When is very little a new measure of bliss?

I play music with someone who once gently corrected me when I said that I felt like I didn’t have enough time to practice during the week.  Jerry’s response: “Try not to think of it as practice but think of it as playing.  Play music.  Don’t practice it.”  I will always remember his wise and profound words, as they turned me around into a new way of thinking and feeling and being.  My music changed after he said that to me.  Like a recalcitrant mule that doesn’t want to head north up the trail, you sometimes have to walk it in a circle once, or even twice, to reconfigure its level of cooperation.  I can’t count the times I have seen this work — the mule will move up the mountain with an open attitude.  Jerry spun my perceptions of Practice into a celebration of Play.  He opened my attitude.

We don’t stop to evaluate Play when we are in the midst of celebrating fun.  We don’t measure Play’s progress or outcome levels.  And I cannot ever recall trying to decide if I was Perfect enough at Play.  What would happen if I chose to see my writing as Play?  Would I continue to consider it a discipline or schedule it as a priority?  I think not.  By allowing myself to enter into the Practice of Perfect Play, the moment is mine.

 

Contagious Happiness: What makes you so happy that when others look at you they become happy, too?

/ Kennedy Farr / 7 Comments

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PROMPT: What makes you so happy that when others look at you they become happy, too?

Is there something in your life that simply makes you feel sooooo happy?  What is it?

Is it a person?  A place?  A thing?  An activity?

Are you alone?  With someone else?  In a crowd?

Why is it so contagious that it creates happiness in another?

Take some time today and think on that “thing.”  Imagine yourself being that happiness.  What does it look like?  Let your memory of that “thing” inspire some fun writing today.

When I read this question, I immediately think of an activity: dancing.  Dance, dance, dance . . . there is never enough time in the busy weekend to get enough dancing in.  I am not thinking of the kind of dancing that you do for the security cameras at work or the mellow swaying-back-and-forth kind that you do listening to reggae at the bar.  It isn’t the kind of dancing that you do when no one else is watching.  Although it can be a lot of fun to reallyreally shake it at home when no one truly is watching, this is not enough for me.  Moving like an awkward and untrained Footloose Flash Dancer makes my dog actually look quite worried about my sanity and the future filling of his dog dish – if I am permitted to do some anthropomorphizing here.

The kind of dancing I am talking about is The Dance of Connection.  While tango dancers will tell you that they have the edge on Connecting on the dance floor, I can honestly say that shaking my booty to some hardcore funk at a bikers’ bar will allow for tango-quality connecting.  I mean, come on.  When was the last time that you did the Bump with someone who actually remembers how to do it?  This is a rare moment.  I had the good fortune to engage in this style of dancing a few weekends ago at a local roadhouse. I looked the fool but had so much fun while in that very moment.  That spot of time that stood still while connecting with something mysterious that can only be described as ridiculous happiness.

And if I were to analyze and dissect and replay my dancing that night, it might be a stretch to say that it made others happy to see it . . . other than that it might have made them happy that they weren’t dancing with me as their partner.  Such things in life involve great risk.  A sense of failure could ensue.  I could be bumped smack into the brass section.  I could be banished into the Field of Wallflowers for the rest of the night. I might have the best time dancing ever.

Baby steps of Risk.  Sometimes this is enough.  Sometimes Risk doesn’t require me to jump out of a plane or tip over backward onto the floor in a game of Limbo.   PowerFun in the moment calls upon me to be open and receptive and not concerned if no one thinks that I am a good enough candidate for Dancing with the Stars.  Shaking it and laughing while I am doing it, it’s enough.  More than enough.  It is the Moment.  So simple yet so powerful a connection in Life’s Dance.

So . . . a prompt for you: What makes you so happy that when others look at you they become happy, too?  Please, do share your Happy with the rest of us.

 

 

 

 

 

Prompt: What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

/ Kennedy Farr / 6 Comments

if you could not fail PROMPT: What would you do if you knew you could not fail? I ask myself this question and my answers are myriad.  Wild and untrammeled. So. Many. Things.  I would climb a mountain.  Travel to a country where I do not speak the native language.  Speak in front of hundreds of people about my research.  Give a radio interview.  Become friends with my ex.  Train my dog to walk off-leash.  Simplify my lifestyle.  Give up pasta. I would pursue my writing with the passion that drives me.  That lives within.  I would boldly and fearlessly remove my editing hand from my writing hand and write uncensored.  Move beyond the borders of my awareness.  I would identify my goals.  My passions.  And create within them.  I would embrace my muse as the friend it is. All things are possible.  Writewritewrite.  And write some more.  Celebrate the words.  And have fun.