{"database": "pelican", "table": "content", "rows": [["ryan", "musings", "In keeping with my themes for 2024 this summer was to be 'The Summer of\nWriting'.\n\nThis theme didn't have a specific post or word count, but I knew I wanted to\nwrite **more**1.\n\nI had a few things I needed to do to get this started. One of them included\nstarting a writing cohort. I wasn't sure how I would do that but it turns out\nin early June [Lacey](https://hachyderm.io/@lacey) was [having similar\nthoughts](https://hachyderm.io/@lacey/112550334978638433).\n[Mario](https://hachyderm.io/@pythonbynight@fosstodon.org) and\n[Trey](https://hachyderm.io/@treyhunner@mastodon.social) had some interest as\nwell and so we formed a writing group!\n\nWe meet every Wednesday (more or less) for about an hour.\n\nI had really hoped that the forming the cohort would give me the encouragement\nand accountability I needed ... and it HAS!\n\nBut I also quickly realized that all I had calendared (really) was the\nWednesday writing session, and so I set out to have a 30 minute daily writing\nsession on my own.\n\nLife has a way of kicking you in the ass though when you least expect it.\n\nRoughly 10 days into my 'Summer of Writing' a work thing came up and kind of\nconsumed all of my thought and energy. I realized quickly that something had\nto give, and so I looked ahead at my Autumn theme and borrowed from it a bit,\nwhile still keeping the spirit of trying to write.\n\nThe next theme was going to be 'The Autumn of Mindfulness' which included\nstarting a meditation practice so I dove into that. I also decided that I\nneeded to try to find something to do from a physical activity perspective. I\nlive in the desert of southern california so the summers are brutal ( daily\nhighs that can average 110F+) and being outside isn't something I really like,\neven in the early morning, before the sunrise, the temps can be mid to high\n80s ... sometimes even the low 90s.\n\nI decided that I would pick up swimming and going to the gym to help alleviate\nsome of the stress from work.\n\nThat, in addition to the writing, seemed to be a good thing to work on.\n\nDuring my Summer of Writing I only wrote 5 posts (including this one)\n\n  * [Summer of Writing](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/10/03/summer-of-writing/)\n  * [SSH Keys](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/07/13/ssh-keys/)\n  * [How to ask a question without sounding like a jerk](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/08/22/how-to-ask-why-without-sounding-like-a-jerk/) (mentioned in the [Django News Newsletter #248](https://django-news.com/issues/248))\n  * [Reflections on Djangonaut Space Session 2](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/08/29/reflections-on-djangonaut-space-session-2/) ([lots of love](https://mastodon.social/@ryancheley/113044831659253804) on socials)\n  * [Mentors](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/09/16/mentors/) (mentioned in [Django News Newsletter #251](https://django-news.com/issues/251#start))\n\nThe articles had a total of 5237 words and so, from the perspective of\nwriting, I managed to do _some_ writing, but it wasn't really anymore than\nwhat I had done during the Spring of Transition where I wrote 4 articles with\n3890\n\n  * [Spring of Transition](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/06/20/spring-of-transition/)\n  * [Using justpath to go on a pyrrhic adventure to clean up my PATH](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/05/24/using-justpath-to-go-on-a-pyrrhic-adventure-to-clean-up-my-path/)\n  * [Trying out pyenv ... again](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/03/29/trying-out-pyenv-again/)\n  * [Winter of Learning](https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/03/19/winter-of-learning/)\n\nHowever, the ability to transition from one idea to another is something that\n[CGP Grey talks about in his\nthemes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE) and so I don't feel too\nbadly about it ... especially because the meditation and swimming have really\nbeen something I'm very proud of.\n\nMy meditation practice includes a 20 minute daily session first thing in the\nmorning to help clear my mind for the day.\n\nMy swimming routine consists of swimming 3 days a week. When I started I could\nbarely do a 20 minute swim. Just before DjangoCon US I swam 1800 yards in 54\nminutes and for the most part didn't stop for a break. If you would have told\nme that in early July when I started I would not have believed you.\n\nIn a weird way the meditation and swimming kind of helped with the writing\nbecause it allowed me to stop thinking, which then allowed room for deeper\nthinking about my writing.\n\nThe stress of work has alleviated a bit and so I'm hoping that after DjangoCon\nUS I'll be able to dedicate about 15 minutes a day to writing to start, and\nthen ramp up to 30 minutes (similar to what I did with the swimming) and\ncontinue to swim and meditate.\n\nOne thing that I've found very helpful is to just add a little bit of a good\nhabit and remove a bit of a bad habit. Sooner or later the bad habit is gone\nand replaced with the new good habit.\n\nIn the Autumn of mindfulness, which I will still try to do, I'll focus on\neating right (I kind of eat like a 7 year old whose parents left the pantry\nstocked with a ton of junk food and then left for the weekend) so I'm going to\nwork to get that under control.\n\nAll in all, it's been a successful summer of writing, even if it wasn't what I\ninitially envisioned. But that's OK, and part of life.\n\nAs Mark Twain said, \"Life is what happens when you're busy making other\nplans.\"2\n\n  1. How much more? I don't really know ... just more \u21a9\ufe0e\n  2. No he didn't. It was actually Allen Saunders in Reader's Digest in 1957, I just like to attribute everything to either Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln \u21a9\ufe0e\n\n", "2024-10-03", "summer-of-writing", "In keeping with my themes for 2024 this summer was to be 'The Summer of\nWriting'.\n\nThis theme didn't have a specific post or word count, but I knew I wanted to\nwrite **more**1.\n\nI had a few things I needed to do to get this started. One of \u2026\n\n", "Summer of Writing", "https://www.ryancheley.com/2024/10/03/summer-of-writing/"]], "columns": ["author", "category", "content", "published_date", "slug", "summary", "title", "url"], "primary_keys": ["slug"], "primary_key_values": ["summer-of-writing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8133873343467712}