Sacred Writing Time - a routine/philosophy

I have divided the page into these categories: This page is a celebration of techniques for those who are interested in developing a writing routine that involves daily writing. Now a quinquagenarian, I feel wise enough to actively see and tout the power of daily writing because it’s improving me. My students who wrote with any sense of seriousness during their time with me as teacher sharpened their developing skills through our daily writing and daily practice, and most of them didn’t even know that’s why they were doing it. In 2020, with a year of retirement safely behind me, my daily writing continues to hone my creative and critical thinking, and I’m proud that I made writing a daily habit in my classroom for thirty years. Daily writing is keeping my brain fresh and sharp–like a good cheddar cheese should be. I already see how doing it inspires me to be creative as well as more logical in the other thinking that I do when I’m not writing. Just as I had my students do for class over thirty years, I want to continue to write daily. I understand not everyone else in the world has the desire nor the discipline to keep a daily writing routine going after they stop being a writing teacher, but I retired wanting to continue living and exploring the writing routines I’d touted for years to my students. I loved teaching writing, and I had some fun routines and lessons and philosophies that are fun for me to write-up daily, knowing that people out there are using them. I try to make these write-ups sound fresh, not like the lesson write-ups you’d leave a sub. Every day, I login and find myself at my website, where every day I spend an hour or two creating write-ups for this website.For 2021, I am already thinking about a “Personal Review/Complaint Notebook” since I think I became more of a curmudgeon in retirement. For 2020, my writer’s notebook has taken the form of a Vocabulary Writer’s Notebook, and I’m learning so many new words while writing sentences that amuse me. “Body and mind” is my little motivating motto for that 45-60 minute period daily I consider the writing portion of this daily warm-up just as important as the physical.

I play with ideas in my writer’s notebook for ten to fifteen minutes after I’ve made myself engage with my exercise equipment upstairs.Retirement has not taken daily writing practice away from me. So I work on them as one of two enjoyable writing tasks I have tried to stay true to during my retirement. I’m lucky because the act of writing doesn’t scare me, and I communicate fairly well, and writing these lessons up, lessons I used to love to teach, for any still-working teachers out in the world is fun for me. I did it as a teacher, and I do it as a retiree.

Unjournaling by Dawn DiPrince