A Year in 140

Making sense of a year gone by… Reviewing your learning… Capturing insights and ‘aha’s…

It’s something we’re inexorably drawn to at this time of year.  There are countless different ways to do it.  This year I looked back 140 characters at a time.

Yes, through Twitter.

It’s one of the conundrums of the medium.  Twitter is fast moving (it’s one of the reasons I love it).  It’s not a wall of updates, but a stream you need to let wash over you.

But, and it is a big but, there are gems to be found in that stream.  Learning points, insights, reflections, realisations.  Moments of vital: aha.

And it is possible to store the gems you find, by simply putting a star next to the message, thereby marking it as a favourite, and saving it for later.

And it is possible to learn from what you have stored simply by looking back at that later date (like the end of the year) and noticing what you found, and kept.  What seemed important.  What it is that you value.  And what it is you can learn from that.

I find myself saving a mixture of things: some quotes that I like; some comments, reactions and feedback about the work that I do (it’s partly motivation, partly learning about what others notice and value); some random lines that make me think, or stop, or smile; and quite of lot of my own thinking-out-loud reflections and discoveries about writing and the creative process.

I decided to look back at the tweets I’d stored in my favourites folder in 2010, as a way of looking back at the year, and – of course – looking forward to the year that stretches ahead.

Here’s the best of what I found:

Favourite quotes

It is not every day that the world arranges itself into a poem ~ Wallace Stevens

Shared by @poetrylibrarian

If you cannot be a poet, be the poem. ~ David Carradine

Shared by SusanBoylesCat

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you. ~ Rilke

Shared by @So_You_Know and @JulieJordanScott

Close the door of words that the window of the heart may open ~ Rumi

Submit to a daily practice. Keep knocking and the joy inside will eventually open a window. ~ Rumi

Both shared by @RumiQuotes

Favourite Thoughts on the Creative Process

Things people said to me in conversation or in response to links I shared. Plus some of my own thinking out loud (those not attributed are my own)

Magic Oil

Me: writing before doing makes everything easier

@JulieGibbons: It’s like a magic oil, helping *everything* happen – (not just the writing of course, but the creative).

The Fast Train

Poetry is like the fast train back to our hearts – gets us out of our head.

From @JackieDaly

Life, and the Finding of Poems

We have to live in a way that lets us find the poems

(From @LissaBoles, pointing a post from @PattiDigh sharing the poem Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye (as I write this I think: how our words become inter-woven, and inter-connected))

Permission to Stop

It occurs to me that sometimes we have to give ourselves permission to stop in order that we may continue.

From @janscottnelson

The Advent Calendar

[On writing each day...] Kind of like a writing advent calendar. Writing opens windows

The Breath of the Dragon

“Forged in the breath of the dragon” ~ Merlin (BBC TV) – that’s what I want my writing to be like

(This one led to a poem… I’ll share it in the new year)

Less is More

Read some great pieces of writing this morning. Soulful, honest, true. You don’t need to write a lot to get that. Sometimes less is more.

Words-As-Labels

Strange how words can be so freeing, yet words-as-labels can get so much in our way

Subway Writing

A poem started writing itself while I was travelling on the subway. I love the way that happens

Favourite Search Term

(I sometimes tweet examples of the most polite sp*m comments, and search terms people use and then find this site)

Search terms to make you smile: “why do we have poerty”. A universe of an answer to that one

Favourite Hash Tag

and, good morning #friendwithanewnamebutsameheart

(From @jnswanson, the day I came back online after my honeymoon)

Favourite One-Liner

Remember the cool kids really are just like us, albeit with better hair

The one and only @KarenSwim

Favourite Compliment

She finds glory in the muddiest of pools – puddles are her speciality

Thank you, @JackieWalker

Favourite Piece of Micro-Poetry

I seek not / to understand poetry… / but to spin breathless / through its air / upside-down inside-out // #micropoetry #gogyohka #poetry

From the pen of @monkeywillow

Last but not least, a review of my year in 140 characters.

Actually it was only 130, as 10 went into the #140xmasltr hashtag. (The challenge from @jnswanson was to write one of those ‘dear friends, here is how our year looked’ letters, in 140 or less.)

Got married Moved house (twice). Grieved for my mum. Found poems. Walked in beauty. Worried too much. Kept opening my heart.

To everyone who shares ideas, questions, reflections, challenges, quotes, poems, small moments of life… with me on Twitter, thank you. Thank you for enriching my year.

Here’s to more, much more, in the year ahead