Obviously, you don’t need to be sorry

Six months. I looked it up. The last text before this early beginning of a text is from late January. Nothing in-between. I wrote. Just not here. Just not in the morning. I wrote at work. Emails and notes. I worked on a lengthy book chapter. Which I now have to shorten. That’s what the editor said. And also ten scripts. Scripts to guide my conversations with a colleague, so that people could – maybe – listen to the recordings without falling asleep or just clicking on something else at 73 seconds in.

That all is writing. I am sure. But not really writing practice. Not practicing. Focusing on the product and not the process. That does not give you any practice. This here is different. Just writing. I will save the half-baked product. I usually do. Keep it. But not for later. It just there. On the computer. It’s done. I practiced. I have a record of it. That’s it. Done. Very satisfying. Nothing else to do. Shawasana. Your body breaths itself. Nothing else to do. Your jaw muscles, your neck muscles, your finger muscles are relaxed. Nothing else to do. Your mind minds itself. Relaxed. Relaxing.

Six months. I looked it up. In Scrivener. Where I keep all texts. I had heard that’s what writers do. That’s the tool they use. When I started in my first writing group. There are templates in Scrivener. For novels. For film scripts. For poetry collections. I do none of these. I tried. I tried. … What do they say in the movie: Try not. Do or do not. There is no try. I just do. I practice. Slowly. And not so steadily. I was not steady for six months. Try not. Do or not do. Just doing. Now.

Obviously, you don’t need to be sorry, she said. I am not. I missed many good writing sessions. Opportunities to practice. Writing practice. Just doing. Just texts. That’s what I call the folder in Scrivener: Just texts. And that’s what they are: just texts. I am not sure whether they are just. Just to anyone. Just to anything. That’s for others to say. I can only hope. And practice. Practice writing. Just texts. Slowly. And steadily. Steadily is better. Typing. Slowly. With … how many fingers am I using? When I am mindful of that, am I using fewer or more? It’s three and a thumb. One on the left, two on the right, and the right thumb. Or is the thumb a finger? It is one of the five fingers on one hand, but it’s not called a finger. So, what is it? I have no idea, and this is getting too philosophical, and I am just practicing. Practicing writing. It feels good to do it. Do.

It's been a while that I posted; I have been posting regularly on PantaRhei. Mainly on GenAI and language education. It's been a while that I went to my writing group's weekly sessions. I went the other day. The prompt was – you guessed it – Obviously, you don't need to be sorry.

New Welcome page

Photo by Stanislav Kondratiev on Pexels.com

What is happening on this site? Here is an update, which I wrote for the Welcome page.

Hey, Friend,

Thank you for coming by. What brought you here? Do we know each other? In case we don’t, I am Mathias Schulze. The pronunciation is [ma-tee-us], and many simply call me Mat. Yup, I only have one T; there is only one in the long version.

On this site, I have a little bit of information about my professional persona. This is how this site started a few years ago; I simply wanted to have a personal presence on the Internet, which is somewhat independent of a work and professional website. Now, I post the work-related stuff on Panta Rhei, my second blog.

I began this Texterium in 2020. It is like an infinite aquarium for texts. I have always been writing, usually work-related. Here, the texts are personal. Some might be enjoyable for others. Some might be insightful or interesting. If you’d like to know when something new is in the blog, follow it. There is a blue WordPress button on top of the right menu. If you are in WordPress, you know what happens. If you are not, you will get an email. Very occasionally. Thank you. This is important to peeps who blog. Very much appreciated.

I have grouped the texts losely into categories to organize myself and, hopefully, orient you, the reader.

Just words: I play with them. Sometimes just for fun. And then quite seriously and deliberately. Always to learn something new.
Just texts: poetry or prose. Often experimenting with form. Me trying out different genres, different styles, different forms, different topics, … often in writing workshops.
Shaping circles: me making sense of my world. One text at the time.
Voices: texts from friends. Occasionally, I post someone else’s creative work. If I like it. And they gave me permission.
Adjacent Stories are a budding fiction book project. I have been posting the occasional draft. Over time, I will add character, scene, and location sketches. I am hoping to be able to write this book in front of your eyes. It keeps changing and shifting because I am learning a lot in the process about writing fiction. One thing remains the same. There is one and the same character in each story somewhere, and he never gets to speak.

Enjoy. I hope. And let me know what you think about any or all of this.

And I spend some time on another blog. We called it Panta Rhei Enterprise. It is the home of non-fictional texts on complexity and change: language, leadership, and learning.

And there was no prince(ss) …

No really. She never came. I must have been sleeping for 100 years. The blog was dormant. I was not. Actually. I was busy. Things went in many directions. Deadlines looming. Things I felt I had to do. Things I wanted to do.

More about that later. I have changed the structure and look of this site a little bit. This allows me to separate the two blogs, on which I have been working on and off. The plan is to give both sites a crisper focus. This should make it easier for you to choose whether you follow this one or the other one or both. Panta Rhei Enterprise, the other blog, with topics like Change, Language and Learning, Complexity, Leadership focuses and will focus more on my things professional. One of the consequences is that I will be moving the blog on Research on Learning and Language gradually to that site.

This, my personal, website will focus on things personal a little more than it has. One of the things I will do gradually is move blog posts from the series Just Words to this site. I have also got a couple of poems ready to go and will put these out one after the other. And I have only just begun working on the Adjacent Stories; these will come a little later.

Be safe and all the best

Mat