As a college student, I constantly blamed busy class schedules and endless homework assignments for my lack of motivation when it comes to writing. There was a time when I loved writing. It didn't really matter whether I was writing about my feelings, my day, a poem, a short story, an essay...it really didn't matter. I just enjoyed the act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard. In college, I only wrote for the purpose of passing classes. Nothing more. I didn't feel like I was writing creatively enough for my liking. As a sophomore, I took an essay writing class. I wrote personal essays. It was reflective, liberating, and dare I say, creative. As a junior, I wrote papers about Shakespeare. They were analytical, concise, academic, and yet, they were fun to write. As a senior, I took a class about creativity, and what it means to be creative. My mind was opened to the idea that maybe college wasn't stifling my creativity, but allowing me to be creative in more mediums than I would have pushed myself in before. After that, I allowed myself to dabble in different forms of media to get my point across. I was dipping my toes into the vast possibilities that composing post-undergrad could afford me.

BUT. And there's always a but, isn't there? Since graduation, I've found myself more stagnant than ever before. I'm lazy. I wake up, I go to work, I go home and eat dinner and  go to bed. Now I have to ask myself. When did I fall out of love with writing? When did I extinguish the flame of inspiration inside of me? How much longer can I blame my university for robbing me of something that I willingly gave to them. Every time I sit down to write, I allow trivial things get in my way. I get distracted by Facebook (seriously, what is with my recent reclamation of all things Facebook?). So I'm making some promises to myself. I want to fall in love with writing again. I want to push myself to write everyday, and I a posting it here in order to hold myself accountable. Next time, I should make some promises to myself about exercising, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, listing things, let's go! I promise to:

1. Keep a journal on my desk at home.

my new journal.

I will start keeping a journal, to write down a bit about my day, every day. I used to love writing the good ol' fashioned way (no not clay tablets). I'll reclaim my love of writing by sitting down with a journal to recount my days. This will also be helpful when I want to look back on my life and write that memoir. Or maybe, just to keep me from letting anything from this beautiful adventure called life slip by unnoticed.

I got this idea from something I saw on Facebook (oh, irony). But, a woman wrote about how a grade school teacher made her write in a journal at the end of class everyday, and at first she fudged around and wrote a bunch of nonsense, but after a couple of weeks she really started writing about her day, and her feelings, and it allowed her to think reflectively about not only her own actions, but the actions of those around her. She felt as though the act benefited her so much that she continued to do it everyday for the next 30 years. I'm inspired.

2. Sit down and work on posts for this blog three times a week.

3. Update this blog twice a week.

4. Record more.