Complex Numbers

January So Far

Reflect on the 30 Day Blogging Competition as a whole. What is something you learned about yourself over the course of the month? What is something you learned about your fellow competitors?

I wasn't in a great place, personally, for a while.

When I made the decision to become more engaged again, it wasn't failbook or twatter that I turned to, nor was it meatspace - it was this site.

As much as I appreciate being left alone to do my own thing, I think it's good to have some interaction with others, and the blog challenge has helped with that, both in January and last November. It's always good to see other points of view on the same prompts - not just to find common ground, though that is nice, but to promote empathy for others' situations.

One thing I've felt I needed to work on for a while now is compassion. It's easy to dismiss or ignore the opinions of others. But those opinions come from their own life experiences, and, both as a writer and as a person, it's not good to dismiss someone else's life experiences. Everyone's on their own journey, and my own path isn't any more or less valid than anyone else's.

And as I've been saying, it's all journey; there is no such thing as destination.

Okay, maybe death, but that's one thing we'll all have in common someday.

As I've also been saying, there's no such thing as useless information, especially for a writer. How can we come up with believable characters if we don't interact with others, hear their points of view? Then those of our characters who hold opposing viewpoints become caricatures or, worse, straw people.

So that's what I feel like I've learned - or, rather, am continuing to learn - about the other participants (yeah, I'm not a competitive person, so I prefer "participants" to "competitors"): that I have something to learn from every one of them.

I hope they feel similarly about me, but even if not, that's worth learning as well.