A friend posted this on her FB wall and I had to ‘borrow’. It is ironic really, because I had just been sitting here, on a Saturday night, pondering tonights #28daysofwriting and my inspiration cup was sitting low.
Don’t get me wrong, ideas and random snippets of prose flow in and out of my mind constantly. However, this barrage of thought has usually vanished by the time I find something to record it, and it is usually at a moment where recording my random wonderings is either tricky (I am in the spa), problematic (its dark, I’m comfortable and frankly too lazy to record my thoughts and god forbid I use my notes on my phone and wake up Technoman) or inappropriate (I am in a meeting and my minds drifted off into the world that finds wonderings more interesting than real life meetings).
This fabulous meme (I can’t really tell where its from – the fine print is actually past ‘fine’ and more like downright indecipherable to me even blown up – which I did – so hopefully it doesn’t say ‘sharing this meme will result in all kinds of copyright pain will descend upon you’ – perhaps I need glasses?) popped up at just the right time for tonights writing.
So tonight, I am going to share with you my initial thoughts and wonderings that came from spying the above meme.
1. Writing inspiration is all around us, we just need to open our eyes.
2. I am going send this to my staff, because I wonder how many of them might find this interesting, and I am super curious about what a class of students would say if they looked at each of these 12 ideas (the half is more tongue in cheek). Furthermore, when I send it out, I might just add how I would use it with a class. For example, what would we learn about our kids if they measured their own writing against each of the points, what would they say? Do they write every day? Have they considered that if they find writing boring so will their reader? How often do they read? How is that applicable? Finally, I wonder, could they add any other rules? Do they think there are some missing? Is it something we need to do better in our class? The list of questions I have about how this could be used makes me want to go and grab some children right now and explore what they might come up with!! (Incidentally, I have said this before but I will reiterate it now – you can take the teacher out f the class to be an administrator, but you can never take the teacher out of the principal, not ever)
3. What lessons are in this for me? More an exercise in self reflection and navel gazing about my own writing really. I think I need to read for fun more – in the techie world we live in it is so easy to get lost scrolling through twitter and reading screeds of research online (which I do every day) but thats a little sad really. I was the preverbal bookworm, and I was always being told to get my nose out of ‘that damn book’ – I once crashed my Dads landrover into a fence because I was too busy reading and not steering, as he fed out to the sheep (thats a farm thing!!). I do love a good story. The question is – can I put down the tech long enough to read a real book. Hmmm.
4. I wonder if #28daysofwriting will actually mean I will stick with the routine…guess I will know on day 29!
Finally, it really does come back to wondering number one. Inspiration is everywhere, and it comes from the most unlikely places sometimes.
What has inspired you of late?