Refocus

I had a chance to 'refocus' to some degree recently. I realize in retrospect that it's not something I get to do very often; there are always 'things' to do, and rarely time just to chill and think. This past weekend I travelled to Washington with friends, and on Sunday, we went for a walk along a small, glacier-fed river through the middle of a beautiful rainforest. I often feel meditative in such serene natural settings and this weekend was no exception. It was a great opportunity to think about my current and future priorities - one of which was this blog.

I started this blog with the intent of developing my 'essay' writing skills. I say 'essay' because I wanted to try writing shorter pieces about interesting topics in a somewhat (this is where the quotes around 'essay' come in) argumentative style. I think I've done that to a degree, but I believe I've been failing on the qualifier 'short': I'm falling into a bit of a deadly spiral that results in not finding the time to write because I feel that I don't have sufficient time. Hence this compromise: I'm going to try to keep my blog writing to three paragraphs for a while, to see if that helps.

In other writing news, I've finally printed off my NaNoWriMo novel started reading it with an eye to revision. That's about a month or so later than I intended to begin this second phase of the novel, so no more promises on a readable draft by the spring. The extended break was good though - I'm excited about taking up the novel again. I just don't entirely know when I'm going to find the time to work on it. :)