SOL & Birthday Wishes

This is my second year participating in the SOL Challenge, and this year more than last, I’m appreciating and reflecting on the fact that it starts the day after my birthday.  It somehow feels cleansing and more meaningful to start the first day of a new year of life reinventing myself through daily writing.  I feel empowered and excited and definitely a little less nervous this time around.

Over this past month I’ve found myself prepping for my writing entries and realizing how I need a notebook to jot down my thoughts at any given moment.  Without the challenge even starting yet, I’ve realized that as a teacher I’ve told my students that writing ideas can strike you at any moment, but unless you really integrate the idea of being a writer into your daily lives, you can’t appreciate that it really is true!  On my way to work, walking down the hall, making dinner, awake at two o’clock in the morning have all become times where a thought, idea or phrase strikes me as a great kick off to a potential writing piece.  Most importantly, I’ve learned that if I don’t write it down often times it becomes a vague, meaningless thought that doesn’t hold the original passion and vigor as it originally did, and the momentum is gone.

So I am excited to start up this challenge and continue to grow as a writer and as a teacher through my reflections about the writing process.  Here goes nothing!