Giving blood, drunk, at thirty-five thousand feet…

If you haven’t read my previous post about the ninety-day challenge, it was a way to restart my creativity. By “restart my creativity,” I mean dig myself out of one of those self-doubt spirals. You know the ones: where you feel overwhelmed at the thought of sitting down to write to create, so many ideas, so many plans, but life gets in the way, your anxiety mounts and in the end - you create - nothing.

Today was day forty-five, so officially I’m 50% of the way through my self-imposed challenge—and honestly, it’s going great.

I do apologise for the salacious title of this post, but these are all (of course) times and places where I’ve grabbed a pen to write a page—just one page! Whilst giving blood (which I advise everyone does), whilst on a plane flying back from Menorca, and whilst having had one too many (mostly German) beers. The latter, I can confirm—unlike Bukowski—does not help my creativity.

I’m beginning to think of my little A5 notebook as a journal of poetic ideas. As some of the poems move from the notebook to be developed, others stay on those pages—maybe for future use, maybe never to be seen again.

I’m not sure how I’ll see this challenge in ninety days, but what I am sure that it has helped me develop a small daily practice. It has dug me out of my self-doubt spiral and has also helped me begin a slightly healthier relationship with social media—but that’s for another post.

So why don’t you try it? Ninety days, an A5 notebook, and a pen. All you have to do is write one page a day, no matter where you are—just make the time. It could take five minutes or half an hour. Just get your ideas on the page!

A few rules I set myself (feel free to make your own):

·       The notebook is only for the ninety-day challenge

·       One page a day, that is all. If you’re inspired to write more, use another notebook

·       It doesn’t have to be good—make it exist first

·       No repeats: different poems every day

·       Can be more than one poem/idea on the page

·       Write left to right, top to bottom, sideways—whatever works

·       Continue for as long as it’s helpful…

Let me know how you get on!