The end of the year is almost upon us and typically this time of the year is reserved for reflecting back on our accomplishments from the past year and planning for what the new year will bring us. It’s a time for making resolutions to uphold for the year to come. Or at least, ones we will try to uphold. Which means I have a confession to make.
We were asked to write about which assignment was our favorite and if anyone’s response stood out the most. When I think back on it, I realized that I’ve done a very poor job at keeping up with reading the blog. I could make excuses a mile long and a few of them might even be legitimate, but the fact of the matter is, I haven’t made the time for it. Which means there really haven’t been any responses that have stood out to me. So next year I’m going to try to do better.
Scratch that. I’m going to make that goal starting right now. There are still days left of this year and if I put off until tomorrow what I really should have started today… well. I’m a procrastinator and tomorrow is always right around the corner. Before I know it, tomorrow will be the start of 2014 and I still won’t have read anything. And it’s not that I don’t read any of the posts, it’s that I read them so infrequently and with so little consistency that I really can’t form an opinion about one response that stood out to me more than the others.
But that was only half the question. The other half of the question requires a bit more confession time as well. It isn’t any particular assignment that was my favorite, but rather the Confabulations as a group. It isn’t that I dislike writing the other blog posts. In fact, every time I sit down to write one of these, it feels like I learn more about myself and my writing. The sad, bitter, truth of the reason I like the Confabulation posts so much, is that writing sadly took a backseat to just about everything else in my life this year.
Then the wonderful editorial board at the Cafe came along and said, “Hey guys, let’s have monthly flash fiction assignments.” Seriously, I love you all. I was held accountable to write something. And by held accountable, I mean that my name was on a calendar with an expectation to turn something creative in. That was all the motivation I needed to crank out several hundred words of creative joy. Well. Not for my characters. I’ve discovered that my writing has taken a rather morbid turn. Perhaps if I let it out more frequently it would go back to being its happy-go-lucky self. Perhaps not.
The Confabulation assignments were a blessing. They were short enough that I could usually turn them out over a lunch break, or in a couple of hours when I got home from work. But they were the creative outlet I needed when life became too hectic to squeeze in anything else. Yes, I know. I could have made time for writing. But I didn’t. Again, next year I will try to do better. At least I had the opportunity to be creative once a month. Because that was something I desperately needed. I hope you all enjoyed them as much as I did. (Incidentally, I generally did manage to keep up with reading the Confabulations.)
Happy New Year Everyone! I’ll see you in 2013!
Leave a Reply