I'm a fan of structured reflection.

Rebecca Rosenblum mentioned Reverb 10 yesterday. I only read about it today because Wednesday got away from me. Between having a cold, being at the whim of public transportation, and loading files on my shiny new music player, I seem to have lost vast swathes of time yesterday.

Anyway, Reverb 10. An "online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next." I don't know about manifesting, but I'm a fan of structured reflection. I'm not going to be an official participant because...I need to stop doing things like that. I jump into things, gung ho, then I hit a hermity patch and I fall off the edge of the word. And then I feel guilty for having signed up all gung-ho-like. So, I'd like less of that in my life. To catch up, here are the first two prompts:

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

My word for 2010: Reboot. I've found some new life in my writing this year. Eric and I started working on a new novel with a new central idea (well, new to me). I started working on short works again and submitting some of them. While the short things aren't the end all of writing for me, they've brought some of the fun back to writing. I need the fun the fuel the work. Word I'd like to describe 2011: Follow-through. Finish Luck for Hire. Keep writing and submitting. Continue, continue, continue.

December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

I fear. At first, I was going to say that I doubt myself, but doubt can be helpful. Doubt can spur you to improvement. But, fear? I guess you can say that fear is fight or flight and fight can be a good thing, but fear is too much of an animal emotion. Fight born from fear is unthinking. Fear of criticism, failure, looking dumb, whatever; it doesn't do anything but paralyze me. To sound utterly Frank Herbert about it, the only thing I can do is to remember that I'm human, not an animal. As a human, I have a mind that can overcome fear. To be a little Tarantino about it, I have to believe I'm fucking Barretta, that I'm super cool.