Receiving

I found myself writing the following note to a dear friend (and relative - how lucky am I?) this morning:  "Want to know something amusing?  I've been itching to write another blog entry since Monday, but suddenly find myself without a topic.  Every time I think of something, I dismiss it as too boring or cliche or, well, stupid.  I'm simply amazed at how my perspective has shifted since actually deciding to LAUNCH this blog.  Before I actually took the plunge, or made the commitment, if you will, I had ideas flitting around in my head what felt like all the time."

Quite honestly, I started lamenting my decision to "commit" the very next day.  In my journal on Tuesday, March 9, 2010, after writing out my usual basic information on where I am, what time it is, and other stuff that just serves to get my hand moving across the paper (my journals continue to be hand-written in inexpensive spiral notebooks), I started in on the fact that I'd begun this process and was now faced with the daunting prospect of finding topics on a regular basis.  I wrote:

"OK, so maybe what I'm asking for now is some fun kind of generator of ideas that I can turn to each day for inspiration.  There may be days when I know what I want to write about (something specific has ruffled my feathers).  But for the most part, I'm thinking it might be fun to just have some random font of topics...

Well, I've put it out there.  Now let's see if I receive an answer."

 Then this morning, while reading an article on AOL, I noticed that at the end of the article, the italicized comment suggested that more of the author's work could be read at Red Room and in his book.  Intrigued, and in a move that is pretty uncommon for me as I do not tend to surf the web much, I followed the link to Red Room.

I was amazed!  What a neat place.  A community of writers.  In fact, the tag line on the site is "Red Room: where the writers are."  Not a big "joiner," though, I only hesitatingly explored the site.  It felt good, though.  It piqued my interest!  And there were so many genres of writers represented!  Wow.

One of the menu headings on the Red Room homepage is entitled "Blogs."  Naturally, I took a peek in there, and one thing led to another until I noticed that they actually have a "Blog Topic of the Week." They throw out a suggested topic and invite any of their member writers to blog about the subject.  Then they choose their favorite ones each week and post them (providing links to the authors' blogs).  That seemed like a neat idea, too.  Ugh oh, I actually started feeling like it might be fun to join this new group.

But I had to run out to get my oil changed, so I put off that decision for another time and put a link to it in my "Favorites."  While at the service station, though, I began writing in my journal and I started to describe this interesting "place" I'd discovered - quite by happenstance - on the web.

And then it hit me.  I quickly turned back a couple of pages in my journal to verify that I really had made a specific request for an ongoing source of topics, just in case I came up short.  And there it was.  In black and white.  "Well, I've put it out there.  Now let's see if I receive an answer."

So how cool is that?  Within 48 hours, I received a perfect response to my "request" for a generator of ideas...a random font of topics!


Welcome to my world.