Hello, all!
I’m planning blog post topics for the first few months of the year and would love your thoughts/feedback.
So, I made a poll!
If you’d take a few moments to chime in on which topics might interest you or help you, I’d appreciate super, very, lotsa much.
Select any and all options you’d like to see, and/or (if the spirit moves you) add your own suggestions/ideas.
Many thanks!
I’m not sure if you all have noticed yet, but it’s the holiday season. For many of us, that means lots and lots of things to do and increasingly less time and energy to get the doing done. The joys of adulting, am I right?
As a mother, educator, graduate student, writer, and business owner, I have many, many irons in the fire and [far more often than I’d like to admit] an itching urge to just pour a heaping bucket of ice water over the blaze — coals, irons, flames, and all.
When we’re pulled in so many different directions with so much asked and expected of us, what do we do? How do we keep up?
I propose learning and embracing what I’ve come to call The Power of Enough, and it helps keep me [mostly] sane and grounded during times when much is asked of me while I’m running on fumes.
came from a mix of things I’ve learned but is also more a generalized application of the mantra academics have that “the best dissertation is a done dissertation.”
Is it perfect? No. Not at all. [Psst. There’s no such thing as perfection. In writing. In life. In anything. But that’s a different post altogether. *Mandi adds “Post re: perfection being a stinkin’ lie that hurts us all” to blog topic list*]
Is it beautiful? Maybe. . in parts. . .and in the fact that it is graciously, mercifully done.
But does it do its job? Yes. Definitely yes. And that is enough.
It checks the necessary boxes. It suffices. It does what it’s meant to do. It doesn’t have to be gilded perfection. It just needs to do its job.
And that is the The Power of Enough. The knowing and applying and embodying the fact that we can’t juggle 476 oranges at the same time without a single bobble or hiccup.
that means I will not even consider doing a Pinterest-style gift for my kiddo’s teachers. Nope. Gift cards it is.
It means I go to my kiddo’s basketball game with wet hair in a messy bun and no make-up because after running errands/grading/answering emails/etc. on my work-from-home day, I only had time for a shower, clean clothes, and applying moisturizer and lip balm before I had to jet out the door to watch said kiddo rebound, shoot, assist, and block out.
That’s okay. I’m cheering and loud. I’m there. And, on a chaotic Thursday, that’s enough.
that means I have a general outline for class sessions but focus on objectives, skills, and big picture takeaways instead of crafting detailed lesson plans that follows a specific order [Not to sneeze as sub-ready lesson plans. I speak as a post-secondary educator who doesn’t have the same lesson plan requirements K-12 educators often have.]
Semper Gumby, y’all. Always flexible. As long as I’m reaching the objectives and teaching the skills, that’s enough.
And sometimes fun memories crop up because of it. Like the time a class discussion on primary and secondary research morphed into students considering a hypothetical heist of the Declaration of Independence à la Nicholas Cage in National Treasure.
At least they grasped the difference between source types, right? Right.
this is a harder translation for me.
I’m generous and understanding of the challenges of writing and revision with writers I work with, but I quite frankly rather suck at doing the same for myself.
I sing the praises of Anne Lamott’s essay “Shitty First Drafts,” from her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, that gives us permission to write something completely awful the first time around. Something that’s flawed and needs improvement but at least exists and therefore does its job.
[Seriously, check out Lamott’s essay “Shitty First Drafts” if you haven’t already. I assign it every semester and carry the SFD as an necessary part of the writing process throughout each course.]
With myself, I’m much tougher, and I struggle more here with applying The Power of Enough.
It’s okay and enough if I just barely meet my word count goal for the day instead of blowing past it.
It’s okay if I wrestle with phrasing or clarity or weaving source material into my academic prose. Or if my first (or fourth) attempt at a scene’s dialogue in my novel manuscript still doesn’t do quite what I want or need it to. That’s writing.
I’m moving forward and getting stuff down in a document. I will come back and make it better later. That’s revision.
So, the clumsy, clunky, awkward-as-heck paragraph I just sweated out? It’s enough.
don’t forget that you are enough.
Each of us are. We do the best we can with what we have. Then, we come back and do it again the next day. And the next. And, that’s how we make progress, keeping our head above water until the seas calm at least a bit.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, gorgeous, wonderful, or the epitome of human endeavor.
It just has to do its job.
So, remember to —
1) Breathe.
2) Be kind to yourself.
3) Take care of yourself.
If The Power of Enough helps you do that, take it and apply at will.
To live is to write your story.
Keep writing as best you can, y’all.
All my best wishes to you for a safe, enjoyable holiday season and New Year!
