Does a pregnant pause give birth to little pauses after nine months? And how did it get pregnant in the first place? Was it, perhaps, inseminated by a break? A comma? Probably wasn’t a period. … think about that one for a minute.
I probably don’t pause often enough to contemplate how grateful I am for the life I have. Great friends, a loving family, a roof over my head and a boiler in the basement that works, enough food on the table and laughter all over the house. True, it’s not always easy. But I’m pretty content with it. Of course a warm sunny beach in my back yard year round would make it perfect…
So when do I pause? In the shower for sure. It’s really the only place I’m not pulled away from by the needs of everyone else. It’s rare to sit down to a meal without having to get up half a dozen times. Same with doing the dishes, cooking, sitting at the computer writing a SoCS post.
I’m back. See? You didn’t even notice the pause. đ
The “pause/paws” prompt is brought to you by Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Click here to join in today!
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 2nd post here!
Happy New Year and welcome to the first edition of Stream of Consciousness Saturday of 2016! Today’s SoCS prompt will be tomorrow’s Just Jot It January prompt word, so if you want to use it for your JusJoJan post, go right ahead! Without further explanation or pause, here’s your prompt:
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “pause/paws.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you’d like. Have fun!
After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at this week’s prompt page and check to make sure it’s here in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post. Anyone can join in!
To make your post more visible, use the SoCS badge! Just paste it in your Saturday post so people browsing the reader will immediately know your post is stream of consciousness and/or pin it as a widget to your site to show you’re a participant. Wear it with pride!!
Here are the rules:
1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what youâre going to write.
2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence â one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry â it doesnât matter. Just let the words carry you along until youâre ready to stop.
3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say âWrite about dogsâ; the prompt will be more like, âMake your first sentence a question,â âBegin with the word âTheâ,” or simply a single word to get your started.
4. Ping back! Itâs important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top.
5. Read at least one other personâs blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If youâre the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, âStream of Consciousness Saturday,â which youâll find right below the âLikeâ button on my post.
6. Copy and paste the rules (if youâd like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers youâll meet and the bigger your community will get!
7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.
It’s a dilemma I deal with every time I write a blog post: do I write freely and not take hours poring over my grammar and choice of wording or do I edit my posts to death? To be persnickety or not to be persnickety? That is the question. I wonder how persnickety Shakespeare was? Then again, he probably had an editor.
Seriously, I’d love to be able to just write and release. But for the interests of my writing career, should I have a paid one one day, I demand perfection (or near perfection) from myself. After all, I never know who’s going to come looking. Perhaps someone famous or even better, someone who can get my proverbial foot in the door of the publishing industry will visit my blog. A line or two is all it takes to make an impression, and I want it to be a good one.
I know I’ve asked this question before, but it’s been at least a year so I think I’ll ask again. Who knows, maybe those who have already answered have changed their practices. Oh, the question? It’s this:
How many times, on average, do you edit a post before you hit the publish button? And how do you do your best editing – in the window you write in, or the preview? If I didn’t have the preview screen I’m sure my posts would all be a mess. What I really want to know is, how persnickety are you?
The “Persnickety” prompt is brought to you by Sirius Bizinus at his new home, An Empty Pen. Make sure you go say hi!
To find the rules for Just Jot It January, click here and join in today. It’s never too late! And don’t forget to ping back your January 1st post here!
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