Pitch Perfect 2
“I have a lot to say, I’m just saving it all up.” That was Beca’s reply (aka Anna Kendrick) to her boss (aka Keegan-Michael Key) in Pitch Perfect 2 after he listened to her demo of mash-ups.
Why do I tell you this? Because I feel like I’m saving up a lot of stuff to say. Which is a “really great example of a horrible idea.” (Pitch Perfect 2. Beca’s Boss.) Here’s my process: Every week on Friday’s I publish a journal post. Because I don’t think that writing and publishing on the same day is a good idea, I write on Thursdays and publish on Fridays. But, oftentimes, I have to marinate on an idea before it actually writes itself. So I spend Wednesdays thinking, Thursdays writing, and Fridays editing and publishing. Which really means that I’m generating my ideas on Mondays and/or Tuesdays, marinating on them and then trying to figure out if I really want to write about whatever it is that I was thinking about. Since my content is not evergreen I ask myself the following series of questions:
- Is this content relevant to my current state of mind?
- Would this topic appeal to the person reading my journal?
- Does this content accurately represent me/my brand?
- Am I being crazy or does this actually make sense?
- (And lastly…) Do I really want this on the internet?
“Sometimes you have to break things down to build them back up again.” (Pitch Perfect 2. Audrey aka Anna Camp.)
Today… err… yesterday… err… this past week I struggled to write this entry (question number five caught me). I spent the first part of my week stressing over a big proposal that I was a) working on and b) presenting and dealing with some personal stuff. Of course, I was reading, a lot actually: several lengthy women’s leadership articles, Babson’s Alumni magazine, The Dallas Business Journal, HBR’s Manufacturing Excellence at Toyota, and a new customer service experience book, The Amazement Revolution. But nothing other than what was going on in my immediate world (my head) seemed to be sticking.
My brain felt numb. My body rebelled. My heart hurt.
“I’m sorry, it’s just like I’m supposed to be on, ya know?” (Pitch Perfect 2. Gail Abernathy-McKadden-Feinburger aka Elizabeth Banks.)
As a last resort to writing a journal post for this week, I wrote down the first thing I thought of (“I have a lot to say, I’m just saving it all up.”) and remembered what it felt like to decompress with “morning pages” from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I didn’t know if I was going to write out all of things that were in my head or if a journal post would actually be produced, but I knew that quoting one of my favorite movies made me smile… and that there were many (many) more lines that cracked me up… so I wrote this post.
What’s my takeaway? “What is meant to be will always find a way.” - Kobi Yamada. (Pause.) I may not have known what I was going to write about when I started writing, but I knew that if I just started writing that something would come out… that or I would quote the entirety of Pitch Perfect 2 and you’d laugh trying to figure out what I was trying to communicate this week.