The map of my life got a whole lot bigger in 2006. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile, but Darren Rowse over at ProBlogger has a Group Project going this week that made me decide to write a post.

Coloring in the Map

2006 was a journey along a road that bore only a faint resemblance to the territory I was familiar with. There were bits and pieces that I recognized, but most of the year I was spent in uncharted territory. Now I can look back and see how much of the map I’ve colored in.

The job

I knew where I was on the map at the beginning of the year. My path was already beginning to leave the areas I knew though. I finally had a paycheck that was unaffected by holidays and vacations, so I started paying off some old debts. The resulting improvement in my credit score threw me even further into uncharted regions.

The house

I qualified for enough of a loan to buy a house. This was not what I had planned. Halfway through the year, I became a homeowner. Needless to say, there have been many little side trips in my journey since then.

The internet

Jaunting around the internet, as I’m prone to do every so often, led me off in some new directions as well. With a friend, I started this site. And I found blogs and podcasts that gave me some focus, which leads me to the next region

The writing

I’ve always written - but rarely, if ever, finished anything longer than a post. I realized this year that writing was important to me. So I took the plunge and did two things - I signed up for NaNoWriMo and I contacted an author who’s podcast I was listening to. I haven’t finished the book I started for NaNoWriMo, and am still working on it, but during the month of November I wrote more on a single story than I ever have before - and I will finish it by the end of the month. And it lead to my being involved in helping put together a local writing group.

The Map Today

There’s an awful lot of color on my map that wasn’t there at this time last year. What I realized though, is that there’s even more of the map that’s still uncharted. And all the roads I see lead out into that uncharted territory. So here’s to 2007 and the knowledge that I’ll see more color on the map - and to knowing that some of that color will be applied to places I don’t even know exist yet!

–ShadowsEdge

The idea behind Break Away is to let your mind go and see if it will break away from your normal thought patterns.

The word is “Winter”

Here’s how it works:

1. Write the Break Away Word in the center of a paper (or if you’re lucky - a whiteboard).
2. Write/Draw the first thing that comes to mind when you look at the Break Away Word.
3. Write/Draw the next thing that comes to mind.
4. Continue the process for 10 minutes or until nothing new comes to mind

Let your pen or pencil find its own way, don’t try to force any associations into a pattern.

When you’re done, take a look at your paper/whiteboard. Where did you end up? Are there any connections that surprise you?