Author: Jackie Pick

Jackie Pick is a former teacher and current writer living in the Chicago area. She is a contributing author to multiple anthologies, including Multiples Illuminated, So Glad They Told Me: Women Get Real about Motherhood, Here in the Middle, as well as the and the literary magazines The Sun and Selfish. She received Honorable Mention from the Mark Twain House and Museum for her entry in the Royal Nonesuch Humor Writing Competition. Jackie is a contributing writer at Humor Outcasts, and her essays have been featured on various online sites including McSweeney's, Belladonna Comedy, Mamalode, The HerStories Project, and Scary Mommy. A graduate of the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, Jackie is co-creator and co-writer of the award-winning short film Fixed Up, and a proud member of the 2017 Chicago cast of Listen To Your Mother.

Reboot, OR Finding the Fun

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I have a knack for making things harder than they need to be. 

In the effort to blog, to unstick myself, to free myself, to wonder, worry, and PLAY — I got hung up in how it looked to the reader.  Was it well written?  Was it interesting? Was it thematic? Was it worthy?

No bueno.

Then I got hung up on using it to purge demons. That just made it painful to write. I was coming here to share pain.

That’s ok, but it wasn’t fun and it certainly wasn’t something I wanted to make habit.

So I stopped.

I rarely quit things, so this is ridiculous to me.

The answer, as the answer almost always is, is:

Simplify.

Make it fun.

Be consistent.

Be myself.

The new goals:

Make the habit of writing here every day, even for just five minutes, for 28 days. Get that habit going. Do it. Find five minutes (or more.)

Stop worrying about reaction.  The times I just write to be honest are the times I write best and the times it’s fun.

Be myself.

See you tomorrow.