Monday, January 08, 2007

Diary Diary: Checking In

Dear Diary Challengers,

How was your first week of keeping a diary? Did you find a diary that will work for you? Did you write every day? Did you write just one page a day? How do you feel about this—eager to continue, or having second thoughts?

I hope you were able to keep up with the challenge and write every day. It's a great habit to get into. If, however, you skipped a day (or two), don't be discouraged. Days are long and hard, we get sick, we forget, or we just don't feel like it. Believe me, I know.

If you skip a day, don't worry: you can recover the next day by recounting the skipped day's events. And it's OK to write "I'm writing this on ." You will be forgiven.

In our house, my kids' diary-keeping efforts had mixed results. It seems that there is a direct correlation between age and dedication. My oldest child, who's 12, wrote faithfully every night without my prodding. My second, 10, needed to be reminded. And my "baby," 8, rebelled and decided this just wasn't for him. He and I need to recalibrate our expectations and commitments.

Whether you wrote seven days or three days, the purpose of this month of writing is to form a habit. As with all new goals, we're going to trip once in awhile. We're even gonna tumble. What's important is that we get back on our feet and keep moving toward our goal.

If you wrote every day, give yourself a huge pat on the back--you wrote every day for a week! If you skipped a few days, give yourself a pat on the back, too. You wrote x more times than you did the week before. And that, my friends, is progress!

Book drawing: We have a winner of the drawing for Real Women Scrap. Congratulations MaryLu! And thanks to everyone who entered.

© 2007 by Marilyn C. Hilton

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I didn't do as well as I would have liked. Traveling and remembering to write is hard. I do hope to get back into it though. I'll be happy as long as I'm writing a few times a week. Thanks for checking in on us...I need the accountability!