Project 365 and making up the truth

I've been thinking about doing a blog project-type thing for some time now. It would be just for me, a journal more than anything else, and it might even be pretty boring to anyone who reads it but me. But as I've said before, the mere possibility that someone might be reading this motivates me to write it more than if I knew without a doubt that no one would see it. That might be narcissistic or self-indulgent, but it's true. But who knows, I might get some stories worth keeping out of this project.

The project is "Project 365," a title stolen from my friend Alison, whom I met in Korea. Her Project 365 was a photo thing. She had to take at least one picture everyday for a year (the year she was abroad, obviously), and if she took more than one on a particular day, she would choose her favorite to be included in the Project 365 album. Well, I'm going to apply this concept to blogging. It's sort of similar to the Julie & Julia idea, but without a specific focus or theme (I was going to try this in Korea, but we see how well that worked out). I've written a few things in the past couple of years (a couple of stories and poems, but mostly blogs), but I feel like I need something to really get my writing going again. When I was in the middle of all my creative writing classes, I would just sit down at the computer and crank out stories or poems (they would need revision, of course, but I could get the basics down easily). Now, when I try start writing something new, I feel like I have absolutely nothing to say (even if I feel like I started out with a good idea, I can't get going). Which is ironic because when I was doing all that creative writing in college, I felt like I didn't have enough life experience to write really good stuff. Now, I have probably at least twice the life experience I did then, and I can't get the words out. So maybe if I write about my life as it happens each day, it won't feel like such a big task. I guess the bottom line is at least I'll be writing. And today, this entry, is the first. I will do this everyday until July 28, 2011, and just see where it takes me. (That's another thing I need to work on... waiting to be taken places and not forcing it... from my experience as a reporter and learning about other people's lives, the people with the most interesting ones just kind of went with the flow).

I write at my job, but it's not quite the same. It's fun to write newspaper articles, especially features, but it's different when the content isn't coming solely out of your own head. It's not as much of a challenge when you don't have all the info in front of you, and stuff is either true or it isn't. I guess the real challenge is making up the truth however you want it to be for that piece. But on that note, don't we, at least on some level, make up our own truth all the time? Things are only as we perceive them....