So far, so good.
I’ve read another book, Packing for Mars, and been working my way through Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. The latter is for my ‘poem a day’. I’ve read Leaves of Grass many, many times over the years. It’s one of the greatest poetry collections, so raw and pure, and I find it inspiring. A perfect accompaniment to this challenge.
The story is also coming along. I’m just over halfway through the first draft. I estimate the ‘halfway’, though. The story is leading me along and I really only have a rough idea of where I hope it will take me. It feels like it’s getting there, like I’ve gotten to the point where things are beginning to come together for a confrontation, a revelation, then a resolution.
I’ve been enjoying the routine and I feel like it’s making a positive difference in my creativity. I feel more inspired to write, I’ve had more ideas popping into my head, and I’m even seeing the world around me a bit differently. What I mean is, I’m not seeing it in a two-dimensional, black-and-white way. I’m seeing more nuance, color variations, more beauty.
For example, there’s a butterfly bush in the front yard. I don’t know what kind it is, but it produces these tiny orange flowers and small black berries. Over the past couple of weeks, the bush has been attracting a wide variety of butterflies. Black and yellow, bright yellow, black and blue, Monarchs, and some too small to identify from my seat in the living room.
Now they’ve been out there all summer, the bush and the butterflies, but it’s only recently that they’ve been catching my attention. I’ll see the fluttering wings out of the corner of my eye, and I stop what I’m doing – reading, watching television, sketching – and spend the next twenty or thirty minutes just sitting and watching these little guys (and girls, I’m sure) dancing among the flowers.
I think this is due to a change in perspective, which in turn is the result of the Bradbury Challenge. Pushing myself to be more creative is changing the way I see the world around me. In a positive way, of course. I think that’s amazing. 
I’ll have my second short story draft completed in a few more days (barring too much distraction from the butterflies), and then it’s on to the next. I’m still not sure how far I’m going to take this before I stop to work on the completed drafts. Or maybe I’ll work the editing process into the challenge.
So many possibilities.
RB