WFMAD - Day One

Laurie Halse Anderson at Mad Woman in the Forest is hosting the fifth annual Write Fifteen Minutes A Day Challenge. Each day Laurie will offer up a prompt which we are free to follow or not.

The rules of the WFMAD Challenge are simple.

1.  Commit to write for 15 minutes every single day this month.

2.  Write, just like you promised yourself.

3.  There is no Rule #3. Life is already too complicated. Two rules are easy to remember. The point is to get you to write, not bog you down with silly regulations. So - without further ado - here is Day One's prompt.

What things do you allow to get in the way of your writing? Be specific, detailed, and brutally honest.

If daydreaming is a roadblock, you are looking at the musings of the one first in line behind the roadblock.  Blogging opened up the world of writing for me and when I was working, it was such an intense relief to write, I thought it would never dry up.  Prose. Poetry. Haiku. Musings. Memories. Opinions.  It was all at my fingertips.  I even took an online poetry class and I loved it. 

If my brain, heart, and hands joined in words, my brain, eyes, and hands joined in photography.  Over time, the two loves merged into one whole - separate but equal; sometimes apart and sometimes together - living as one.

So why has my writing taken a backseat?  In fact, why is everything taking a  backseat?  I thought by now retirement would have directed me to my niche; would have revealed my passion.  But more often than not, I wake up, accomplish a task or two, and then let responsibilities and duties and desires slide. 
I curl up with a book. I switch on the TV by early afternoon starting with The Five and then half tune in on one news program or another.  While half aware of the news programs, I'm distracted by Facebook, reading blogs and commenting, perhaps playing with Pixlr-o-matic software making Instagram type pictures on my computer. 

The picture above is an example.  Little Mister Delaware sits in one of his favorite places, the top of my head, as he tucks in under daddy's chin.  Really, he couldn't be more distracting or cuter if he tried.  Having a puppy has become another roadblock to writing.

Yes,  back to writing roadblocks.  What is at the heart of the roadblock?  As I sit here musing and writing on the question, it seems so silly.  I'm writing.  I'm loving it.  I'm actually producing something that makes a bit of sense.  I have to ask my - can I be consistent?  Can I actually do this for 30 days?  How many days would make me feel I had made a success of this challenge. 

Just the very word challenge bothers me.  It feels like such a charged and loaded word.  Am I up for it?  Can I do it?  By not doing it, would I be a failure?  There certainly has been too much of that in my life.  I've failed to accomplish many things, many projects, many efforts, many dreams.  On balance though, when I think of what I HAVE accomplished - two children who grew into fine adults, a long sustained marriage, completing half a Masters in - if you can believe this - creative writing - then I've accomplished quite a lot. 

Why don't I consider an unfinished Masters a failure?  Well, life is full of choices, full of paths taken and not taken, and ultimately doors open that must be walked through leaving something else behind.  Walking through the door of this challenge may help me to leave something behind that needs to be left behind.  I feel it might but I'm not quite sure what it is.  Perhaps I will find out in 29 more days.