Kick off your blogging year with a flash mob of writers  —>Click to Tweet that.

Five Minute Friday 2014

Where a beautiful crowd spends five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing them over here. It’s like free writing therapy for the tongue-tied, tired, or blocked blogger.

We took December off, and it’s good to be back with fresh words that need a blank page.

How to Join:

Want to know how Five Minute Friday got started and how to participate? All the details are here. But in short, the post goes live every Friday at midnight EST. And everyone links up throughout the day on Friday.

What They’re Saying:

I also have some Five Minute Friday stories from participants I love to share from time to time – I can never get over the community that has grown up over a five minute writing exercise. If you’ve got a story then just shoot me an email.

Because, as it turns out. Writing regularly and for even five minutes stolen here and there during early mornings or late evenings or during nap times and any fringe moments one can carve out can be free therapy for any writer’s soul.

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So, let’s do this thing. Let’s write.

Set your timer, clear your head, for five minutes of free writing without worrying about getting it right.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..

Oh and Ahem, if you would take pity and turn off comment verification, it would make leaving some love on your post that much easier for folks!

OK, are you ready? Please give us your best five minutes on:::

Fight…

GO

We think of beginnings as a time to pound out old rugs. Run rags over finger print smudged windows. Change the flowers. Vacuum under the furniture. Fling the windows open to some fresh air. We think of beginnings as significant opportunities waiting to be unwrapped. But it’s the finishing, it’s the finishing that can ache with opportunity.

Because all that gusto, all those clean rooms, all those hours carved out for writing will unravel without a strong end. To keep going. To push through and not worry to much about the mess. To see the finish line and fight across it no matter how awkward. That is opportunity worth grabbing onto with both hands.

In the newness I don’t want to lose sight of the end. The old is less attractive, less enticing with promises of clean slates. I’ll take my cracked up one from the old year thank you and keep right on writing in bold strokes across it. I am not done yet. I am finishing.

Every new year. I am still finishing. Not time or projects or the clothes I should have sorted for the Salvation army. But me. I am finishing and relishing the hard work. Years like sunsets pour over us – glorious, with the promise of the chance to keep at it tomorrow.

To just keep at it.
::
STOP

* Confession: This is my five minutes from January last year. The first time I’ve ever re-used a five minute post. But dang, it preached to me and I needed to hear it again. It surprised me and challenged me and maybe you need to hear it again too? Let’s fight hard to the finish. No Fear New Year.