I’ve been thinking about my own choice of ‘essential post‘ from 2009. I know, I know, it’s not easy to choose 
I decided to cheat a bit by starting with an essential post from each of the 12 calendar months, posts which captured something important or represented a significant blogging milestone for me.
My 12 essential posts include:
January: One of ’09′s Twitter posts. I am a big fan of Twitter (some of you will know). This one’s on how Twitter can help you to write with confidence.
How Twitter Can Help You Write with Confidence
February: February saw me doing battle with the inner critic, so my choice is what I learned from getting past him.
10 Things I’ve Learned from Writing and Tenacity
March: My choice for this month is something I’d love for you all to drink up, believe in and pass on: tuning into positive feedback.
Are You Tuning in to Positive Feedback?
April: This piece is more personal, creative, imagined, reflective… a variation from my normal style. Something I hope to do more and more of…
May: One of many posts on the challenges of blogging. I think this one is particularly apt, because it highlights the tension between blogging and other forms of writing.
June: Another blogging post… I was clearly going through a dip in the summer
10 Things to Do When You Lose Your Blogging Voice
July: My choice for this month is a short one liner and photo, chosen because it reflects a different format and style (that I’d like to develop), and because my photography has become so important to me. Plus this message is one I believe in, totally.
August: Not just photography but painting too… who’d have thought it. This piece reflects on the creative process and where it can take you.
Painting My Way Into Possibility
The bonus extra for this month has to be a little piece of my own story, a digital fairy tale.
September: The possibility theme brought me to this post on ways that writing changes things. It seems to get to the heart of what I’m about, what I want to learn more of so I can teach it, write it, pass it on.
9 Possible Ways that Writing Changes Things
October: My choice from this month is the piece on writing without apology. It seemed to strike a chord with you, dear readers.
10 Ways to Write Without Apology
I also need to include a post I shared at Joyful Jubilant Learning. It’s a prose poem I wrote for my mother. It is perhaps the most significant thing I’ve written this year.
November: My choice is the ‘Rosetta Stone’ piece, because it reflects so much of the soul searching I’ve been doing this year, and also taught me such a lot about how wise, supportive and creative the readers of Confident Writing are (see the comments on this post for more)
The Search for the Rosetta Stone, or Confessions of a Blogging Addict
December: It has to be the ABC poem, because it captures the essence of my Confident Writing philosophy (and was a whole lot of fun to write)
A few reflections before I move on to my one essential post.
1. Blogging is by nature reflective – including posts on what, why and how we blog. Those posts are often the most valuable because they contain so much learning
2. The posts where we share a bit more of ourselves and our journeys are the ones that stand out
3. I still seem to be a big fan of numbered lists
The post I’m selecting as my essential post of 2009 is 9 Possible Ways that Writing Changes Things.
Because to me, it really matters. It counts.
It’s an affirmation that:
Writing can shift things for us, inside: opening up a sense of creativity, playfulness, the freedom to dream dreams and explore what’s possible.
~~~
This is my contribution to the Essential Lines from 2009 Group Writing Project.
You’re welcome to join in – you don’t need to chose one a month, just one that strikes you as the most essential (although that is more easily said than done). You can find out more and how to join in here.
What a wonderful collection of posts, Joanna, thank you for sharing them here! I’m glad you chose one for each month, it’s lovely to look back over the year on Confident Writing. But my favourite is your ’9 Possible Ways That Writing Changes Things’ because I love lists too and because I love the whole idea of possibility!
My choice is easy, as I’ve only written one post! My first blog post in almost 18 months: http://diannemr.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/just-one-small-stone/ (I’ve even forgotten how to do the whole embedded thing!) But I might have chosen it anyway, being my first step back into blogging and also because it highlights the fact that problems can often be the source of possibility.
(I have put something else on my blog, but it’s more of an extended #followfriday than a blog post, thanking some of my favourite twitter folks … a big thank you for you there!)
.-= Dianne´s last blog ..Blessings From On Line =-.
Joanna,
Finding your blog on the day you posted your essential lines was a bonus for me. All I had to do was read through your twelve faves to get a feel for you and your blog. Enough to know I will be coming back for more.
I can’t answer your question in its entirety, because I lost my blog in a fatal cyber accident during the month of November. I mourn the loss of those precious nine months of daily writing. My new blog has only been active for seven days now.
The most valuable thing I learned from its loss? Blogging is an integral part of who I am as a writer. It is a way for me to connect with other writers, chance viewers who may end up as cyber friends and those who know me differently in Real Life, but can learn to appreciate what goes on in my dreams.
Thanks for the valuable info!
.-= Cat Woods´s last blog ..The Blocks =-.
Joanna, as I read the list so many of these stirred up powerful memories of fears you helped me to face and walls you helped me break down. I could not have chosen one from the many posts you have written but these 12 were truly powerful. I am going to enjoy revisiting them again.
.-= Karen Swim´s last blog ..Why Pretty Good May Be Really Good for Your Business =-.
Hi Joanna. This year has brought essential change and the very essence of this is encapsulated in yesterday’s post which, as you know, I’ve been working on since the process started. Here ’tis: Change – a risky business
Your request for the ‘essential lines from 2009′ motivated me to get it finished!
.-= Jan Scott Nelson´s last blog ..Writing to learn, and writing to understand what the learning is =-.
@ Dianne, thank you for the feedback – I’m glad you liked that post too, and I can see how’s it just right for you just now
Thanks for joining in the project with your own piece, it’s great to have you back blogging again!
@ Cat, I can hardly bear to imagine what it must be like to lose your blog. You have my sympathies. I know what you mean about blogging being integral of who you are. For me it’s not just who I am as a writer, but who I am. I can’t imagine life without it!
@ Karen, so often we seem to be travelling on the same bumpy paths… you make for a wonderful travelling companion, always and all ways x
@ Jan, thank you for sharing that, and publishing it, and teaching us so much about taking those risks. Your new blog is beautiful and brilliant, and I’m sure it will inspire many people to venture forth from their comfort zones (including moi)
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