I set a goal to create a postcard every day of March, focusing especially on using resources from the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). It was a great way to explore the resources before doing a session that included talking about DPLA. But…I did the talk last week and that was that. Four days at the end of March without postcards. The holiday weekend had arrived, and I wanted a digital break. I played with my paper cutter and started moving irises in the front garden. I baked a coffee cake and cooked one of our hams in the crock pot for Easter. I played Minecraft.

A CLMOOC Postcard Remix was the impetus for my personal challenge, and I’ve heard from at least one CLMOOCer that she received the postcard I sent. It is fun to make those kinds of analog connections with people. And having an online tool to print and mail the cards was cool. I can almost get rid of my color printer.

I’m not too upset that I didn’t get the last four done. I accomplished my mission to learn more about DPLA. And I did most of the work using free tools, especially the Preview tool that is part of my OS. Check out all the postcards here.

What’s Next?

There are always challenges that support creativity. This month, the CLMOOC is participating in Illomo, a daily drawing challenge. Camp NanoWriMo has been emailing me about their April session. I am interested in a daily writing practice but don’t really want to write a novel.

In fact, part of the goal of the postcards was to create a habit. But, I didn’t really establish a daily habit in terms of time…I made postcards early in the morning and late at night. I did a couple catch up posts with several postcards. But, creating postcards was part of my life for most of the month of March.

So, how did I do it? I put it on the list each day, even when I was traveling. (Actually, it was a little easier to do it on the road because hotel rooms come with few chores or distractions.) But *how* did I do it: some days, the postcard started with an idea; other days it started with an image. But the main idea was that I started with an intention so I opened the laptop and created a postcard. The topics came from the landscape around me: women’s history month, pi day, baseball.

So, can I do the same with writing? The postcards felt like they were low pressure: an image with some text could happen pretty quickly, something more interactive like the author map, took a little longer. Writing means more somehow, particularly if it is going to be published on the blog: drafting, editing, linking.

I am already a day behind as I write this on April 2. But, I am committed to writing over the course of the next month.