(40 of 40) The Last Blogpost?

Well, the last blogpost in this series of 40. I promised 40 days of blogging...no guarantee that they would arrive 40 days in a row, but I wanted to land close to that mark.

Here's some of what I've learned, both about writing, and because I was writing (i.e., paying more attention than usual):

• If I'm paying attention, life offers me something every day that makes a good analogy or lesson or example for a blogpost on writing.
• It isn't my stuff that gets in the way of my writing, it's my belief that my stuff gets in the way.
• I can sit down at my computer and write a blogpost in about 15 minutes...give or take a few minutes while I check for errors and straighten out any tangles.
• Writing a blogpost every day is writing every day.
• If I skip a day or write something lame now and then, none of my followers gets bent out of shape (at least, they don't tell me if they get bent out of shape).
• My classes can be a rich source of more ideas for my own writing -- if I approach them in that spirit.
• If I'm writing for accolades -- for fame and fortune -- then I'll quit writing. On the other hand, if I really want to do something, then that desire can be motivation enough.
• When I'm dreading writing something, dreading my classes, dreading an interaction with a colleague or a wound-up daughter, that's fear. Recognizing that dread = fear is the first step to disabling it, and maybe even turning it into love. I have to credit my friend Carolynne and ACIM for this insight, but blogging helped me notice it.

Thanks for following along! And here's a link to the announcement about my prize-winning poem (and the poem, if you scroll down) at CALYX:  http://www.calyxpress.org/Cranstonprize.html. There's a very cool link to a web page of one of the finalist's, and I hope you'll take a look at it.

Bethany