Slice of Life is sponsored every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth from Two Writing Teachers. For the month of March we are challenging ourself to write a Slice A Day. Here we go!
You know,
I went back and looked at my first post on this blog the other day. The entire
reason I began a blog was due to people (Tony, Ruth) encouraging me to do so. I
know I was afraid. I didn’t know what I wrote would be interesting to anyone.
What do I have to say that isn’t already out there? But I also talked to Colby
one night at NCTE, we both were leaving NCTE with the feeling that we needed to
write. How can I talk to my students about writing if I’m not writing also? So
I began a blog.
The blog
was going along pretty well when I began to see mentions of this larger Slice
of Life challenge. I was already posting a slice every, or almost every,
Tuesday. When I first thought of slicing for the month of March I was
apprehensive, what would I say each day? Would my writing be up to the task? I
considered the people that were writing slices “real writers” – what would they
think about my writing?
As the
month progressed I found a few things surprising. I never really struggled with
something to write. I wrote the night before each day, I hate leaving things
where I might be running late. So I wrote at night and scheduled my post for
the following day. I had created a list of ideas to slice about if nothing
popped in my mind that day; I never used it. What I found was as I lived my
life each day things would happen and I’d think that would be a great slice.
There’s a
great quote somewhere that writers’ lives aren’t more interesting than other
people’s lives, they just live their lives with their eyes wide open. I think
that is one of the main takeaways I have from this challenge. I really
want to write a book. I have ideas in my head for a kid’s book, a picture book,
a teacher’s book. There is only one person who has every seen any of that
writing and that’s was for the teacher’s book. When I try to write them I get
nervous. What am I thinking? I’m not a writer. And honestly, the ideas behind
any of them aren’t great, yet. But this challenge has made me realize if I
really want to write a book, I need to be working on it daily, not just as I
have time here and there. Because I feel when I am immersed in it, like I have
been with this challenge, I’ll see the ideas everywhere.
So thanks
Stacey and Ruth, for this wonderful community. Thanks Tony and Ruth for asking
me at two separate conferences why I wasn’t writing a blog, which would help to
finally get me started. Thanks Colby for talking writing with me. Thanks
Donalyn for being my Yoda. Thanks to my husband, Chris, for reading my slice
each day and talking to me about what I wrote. And thanks to all of the amazing
folks in the slice community for commenting and making me feel like I could
write each day. It’s been a great month.
