It's March 1st and one of my favorite writing times of the year - the Slice of Life Challenge run over at the Two Writing Teachers blog. Last year I rejoined the challenge after taking a year or two off. This year, March 1st completely snuck up on me. It wasn't until a friend asked if I was joining in again this year that it dawned on me that the time was drawing near. I was hesitant.
See, I love the Slice of Life challenge. I love the push to write every day for thirty-one days. I love the accountability in the group. I love the comments from other slicers. I love reading their slices, being inspired, learning about people I don't know. It is amazing.
And yet, I'm not joining in this year. I simply can't. The thought of writing daily is exhilirating. However, I know I do not have the time in me right now to give myself to the community in the way I should. I cannot be certain that I can read other slicers' blogs, commenting on at least three a day, and that's not ok. I don't want to ask more from a group than I have to give, so I've decided not to join.
What I am going to do is blog myself. I'm challenging myself to write everyday in March on my own. Looking at my blog, I've written five times since January 2nd. Now that's for a variety of reasons. I am truly trying to live my word of 2018, present, and I have been. But a great deal of that has to do with being hit with Influenza A on January 31st. Even with the gift of Tamiflu, that knocked me for a loop.
Then, the cough began. My students would count how many cough drops it took me to get through one class. (I have a bad habit of crunching them up once the cough has let up.) Kids brought me some as gifts. One class began researching the most effective cough drops, even sending me links when they were at home. Today is day thirty of my flu and cough, and while it has improved (the flu part anyway), I still have this darn cough.
So, blogging took a backseat in February, even more than the sporadic at best blogging that happened before. But ideas have been percolating. I've felt the writing itch again several times over the past few weeks, and that has been dormant for some time. It is precisely that itch that made me decide I was tackling this blog for the month of March, but I was doing it for me.
So to my fellow Slicers, WOO HOO. You've totally got this. I'm cheering you on, but know that I need to blaze my own path this year. March is yawning ahead of me and feels full of possibility, and hopefully one of those possibilities is a day free from coughs and cough drops. That is sounding good to me.
Write on!
