I love stats. This coming from the person who can’t figure a out a tip for the waitress without a long pause, a heavy sigh, and some frantic figuring.
What I mean to say is, I love stats when someone else is compiling them.
WordPress runs figures on my website and puts them in pretty little bar graphs and impressive all-time numbers that make me feel like, Hey…job well done for the most part. In taking a peek at them this week, I realized that I’ve been writing posts for this blog for almost six years, inviting over 30,000 visits and marking over 1000 comments.
Numbers, yada yada, numbers.
What’s more fun is seeing the posts that people visit most, from “You Talk Too Much” (I will try not to take that personally) to “This is gonna hurt a little” (ahh…writing). So, in the vein of “It’s almost my blog-iversary” (maybe I’ll do something bigger come July), here’s a post from four years ago. It only hit the halfway mark in most viewed, but it reminds me of a treasured time and place and a lesson that never grows old.
Surrender the Pen
Right after you bring that crazy busy week to a close, just as you head out of town with family, as soon as you think to yourself, No chance for writing, I’m sure, there you are, surrounded by inspiration, ideas, and gifted with little pockets of time. That was me, last weekend: deep in the north woods, working hard not to worry about the book I wanted to finish reading and the interview questions I had to write and the blog post I needed to draft; thinking, if I won’t have time to write, I might as well forget it. I might as well enjoy every minute of this last vacation of the season. It was then that creativity started popping up everywhere. Time expanded, so I could scribble more words into my notebook than I expected.
The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.
~ Julia Cameron
Birchbark Kingdom
Three days in the woods is ample time for kids to create a whole world under a canopy of birch and pine. The path leading up to Birchbark Kingdom (as they called it) was lined with twigs and moss and gave way underfoot ever so slightly, hinting at the years it took to form and the relief in (finally) being discovered. There were birch bark crowns for everyone (taken from a fallen soldier), designated guards, and a store that ran on a strange stick-bartering system. I took mental notes. I drew from their free-spirited imagination.
Campfire Revelations
We burned only one camp fire over the weekend, and I’m glad I didn’t skip the opportunity to sit in the circle. Besides the chocolate, graham crackers, and monster-sized marshmallows, camp fires are where stories are told, where people and real-life events spark a writer’s mind with scenes for “that novel” or idiosyncrasies for characters barely developed. I made s’mores, listened intently, then ran inside and wrote down those ideas, because bits and pieces of different conversations often come together to form whole, made-up stories.
Endings
Like the last few pages in a good book, the sunset on the final evening brought the rush of fun to a quiet, satisfying close. I had just walked the path of Birchbark Kingdom when I turned and saw shades of pink riding along the water, sifting through the clouds, the boat turned over, hunkered down for the winter.
And, in that moment, I realized time is never wasted. The whole weekend had been one long and unplanned artist date.
Artist Dates fire up the imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play. …[Art feeds] our creative work by replenishing our inner well of images and inspiration.
~Julia Cameron, on juliacameronlive.com
Sometimes, letting go of the work is as important as doing the work.
What surprised you this week and sent you running to your notebook?