Sometimes I need to gift myself opportunities to expand creatively. Whether it’s my 100 Day project or decorating a special event, I do well with having a deadline. And even though I’ve mostly kept myself accountable to writing three times a week for my blog ( a little understandable slacking during our lockdown), it’s been a while since I had an opportunity to write with this sort of impetus. Julia Barnickle’s Lesson’s during Lockdown collaboration provided a perfect opportunity to write something bigger and better.
Julia had already hosted something about finding more Ease in our daily lives in January. And when, in her invitation to join, she spoke of her own experience writing for others’ community projects as a good way to feel a part of community, I got this. Absolutely. She wrote:
“In July 2020, there will be a second free online community project “Lessons from Lockdown” which will result in another ebook / book, containing essays / quotes about positive things learned during the experience of lockdown during the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic.
One of my visions for “Lessons from Lockdown” is not only to describe how we’ve managed to stay sane during lockdown, but also to create a vision of a bright new future – a future that works for everyone.”
You can find my essay titled Lessons During Lockdown: Finding Ease in Uncertain Times Here. I truly enjoyed writing this because, when I did, I finally found ease in writing my specific story. Seems that writing is the place where I am mostly myself. Where I enter a world that I am uninterrupted with my muse and that is a place I want to live in.
Funny though how I have been here before and forgotten.
In March of 2018, I had an invitation to join the Wholehearted Living Project hosted by Terri Connellan on her Quiet Writing site. I was thrilled and proud of myself for that piece. I discovered more of myself within that project. I found that I believed in Non-Negotiable Creative Soul Living, a way of respecting the need for creativity and living within that space. You can find that essay title Gathering My Lessons: A Wholehearted Story Here on Terri’s site.
Then I offered an essay up for the Attract Readers’ International Women’s Day Challenge in March of 2019 titled Ceasing Our Self-Bullying & Befriending Ourselves which you can read here. I had the chance to truly speak to myself about compassion and kindness.
Point is that I enjoy writing these bigger essays. It gives me time to really find out what I think. And to take time to mold then and smooth them out until they are the best I can do. I am proud of all these pieces and have been reminded again that I’m an essayist.
Were you to want to read my other stories, they’re there for your enjoyment.
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And, as always, Thanks to you for your visit.
3 Comments
Shalagh, I’ve just read the three essays you’ve linked in this post. You write with such total honesty. This gets my great respect, and I admire your forthrightness. Thank you for that. In addition, I just like your writing, and how you seek to know yourself better, prioritize yourself and those things important to your self and build community. All are so important. In “Finding Ease in Uncertain Times”, I was placed right there with you with the details of the wine-soaked Outlander (did you read the first few books?) watching and the scraping of the spoon. It is good to contemplate and know what our Ease is. I am going to subscribe so I can read more of your words:)
Thank you Jenny. All of this is such a gift and i thank you for handing it back to me. As a writer, half of the joy is finding the right words and the other half is knowing your words meant something to someone else.
Mutual Appreciation club!
Hi Shalagh
I’ve also now read all three of your guest posts, and I love your writing even more than before. You have such a breadth and depth to your writing – and to the topics you tackle – and I admire you for that. I also love that you have run several online creative projects – I’ll have to look out for those in future! I’m so pleased that you wrote an essay for the Lessons from Lockdown project – otherwise, I might never have found out what a wonderful writer and creative you are! 🙂