This post is #10 in a series of 50 dedicated to the art and life of writing, in support of the 50 for 50 Project to benefit WriteGirl. If you like it, or if you think it could have been improved by a better writing education for its author, please give generously. And pass it on.
I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to thinking that writing has to be big or important or perfect.
Or just long. I mean, seriously, have you read this blog?
But if there is one thing that Twitter has re-taught me, it's that small can be good: in fact, I consciously used it to retrain myself to fashion pithier sentences, and while I use it less now, it certainly helped. Gretchen Rubin keeps a one-sentence daily journal; she finds it a simple way to stay in touch with the things in her life that would otherwise fly away, never to be thought of again.
My grandmother, who would never in a million years have called herself a writer, wrote some of my favorite things. Usually, they were little add-ons to my grandfather's lengthy letters, he had no problem calling himself a writer. Just a sentence or two, often about something mundane, but always full of love and her own goofy, gentle character. Of the many artifacts they left behind, one of my all-time favorites is this fascinating travel journal she kept during the last years of their heavy, international travel, in the 1950s and early 1960s. My grampa used to needle her about recording the crazy minutiae she captured, prices and times and "steak dinners." But I love them because they are real, and in her hand, and as they occurred to her in those moments. These are the things she wanted to record and keep.
If you call yourself a writer, it is always wise to carry a little notebook around in which to, well, note things. I favor Field Notes these days. (Not a paid advertisement! Just a fangirl "howdy!")
But even if you do not, it might not be a bad idea to carry something around to note things which occur to you, or to record things that are happening, like steak dinners, and where you took them, and that you rested, bathed and dressed just beforehand. You of the Future might be fascinated by the very details You of Right Now take for granted.
xxx c