Writing again: Getting back on track by Reading

How do I get back into writing again?

This is a question that I have been asking myself since the last day of the teaching degree. It is all done now – the coursework is complete, the evaluations have been submitted and the final grades will be posted in the next two weeks. But life does not stop there. My days may seem a little more free now but the need to learn something new, to continue on the path to getting better, reading, writing and pursuing new interests is still alive.

The weekend before my last week, I was planning out the next thing I am going to take up – now that summer will be rolling in, I will spend sometime brushing up my French. It is a language I learned in junior high and didn’t really get a chance to hone further in high school. Now I will have the time to pick it up again and use it. It will also help me when I am applying to move permanently to Canada because it is one of the national languages.

There is much excitement in picking up something left behind long ago. However, what about the things that were a constant part of life before school completely took over? Before evening were all about planning ahead, preparing materials, completing worksheets and maybe relaxing with some video games…

I used to read a lot more and write a lot more. I used to write about teaching, learning, bullet journaling and books. That is the whole reason this website exists. To document the journey of a learner – me.

After a break of about three months, how do I get back into it?

Of course, I have googled the situation and the answers I found were useful. I should make a habit of writing every day, at least a little bit. I should update my website, learn about content management and build a schedule for writing. I should plan out exactly what I will be writing in the next 30 days. Not that I don’t want to do theses things, I feel it will take more than planning to get back into the same pace of writing again.

Bullet Journalling

During these past few months, I am sad to admit that I stopped bullet journaling too because there just wasn’t enough time. That was the first thing I picked back up once school ended. I found this amazing book called Journal Me Organized by Rebecca Spooner. It had beautiful spreads for planning and bullet journaling and some how-to guides for using water colours in the bullet journal. I loved painting growing up and updating my bullet journal to an art-journal seemed like the perfect way to get back into it. It has been going well. I have been finding time as well as the motivation to work in my bullet journal again.

Reading

Reading has been going well too. I love buying books and free time allows me to chase after some ideas that had been pending for a while. I am still working through my 50 books challenge but after sticking to it since the beginning of the year and making good progress on it, I have now diversified to start reading books that were not on that list. I am looking forward to spending some time on reading about building routines that allow creativity, coaching and becoming a better learner.

Writing

This leads me into my solution for getting back into writing:

• I write primarily about teaching and it has gotten me lots of success and confidence.
• I love reading books from which I can take away key points and apply to my life, whether it is personal or professional.

However, I think I need a break from what I usually write about and, similar to bullet journalling and French, pick up a skill (water colors or a language) that I used to engage in but have not in a while. For writing, that would be getting better at writing itself, focusing on the art of writing better, captivating the reader with the words.

I researched many books for writing better and generating more ideas. I would recommend looking through Grammarly’s list of 10 books on to improve writing for more suggestions. So far, I have succeeded in acquiring the following:

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I am also looking forward to reading Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft in the future. I used to write fiction but the last half a decade has led me to engage in non-fiction more. For now, I will focus on non-fiction writing, persuasive writing, summarizing books and organizing ideas better. Books related to business would probably come in handy as well. If you have any book suggestions, please recommend them here.

What does this mean for Armed with a Book?

Starting small, I will share what I learn from the books that I am reading. This isn’t new, but what is different is the kinds of books I am reading. They are going to be about learning and writing.

My hope is that by focusing on skills that I want to pursue right now, I will be able to get back in full swing to writing about teaching more.

Of course, there will probably be other topics that I explore more and that is how I will grow and so will Armed with a Book.

Thanks for reading. 🙂