About two weeks ago fellow nonprofit techie Debra Askanase (@askdebra) and I hatched a plan to blog more regularly. It started like this:

Then went like this:

And a challenge was born:

Swirling around my brain was the advice that it takes 21 days to form a habit, so I translated this into blogging twice a week for four straight weeks.

And a friend joined:

And another friend joined:

We are in Week 2.

I’m pretty sure that none of us has met in person. We are four women, connected via Twitter, trying to make the world a better place by working with nonprofits and blogging about it.

It’s been a rough week for me and I’m behind, but my #blog2X buddies (@askdebra, @junoconsult and @acgtx) are nudging me onward. Who couldn’t use a personal cheerleader, or three? Rock on, ladies!

I’m enjoying reading blog posts I might ordinarily miss, and getting a little extra mileage for my posts.

In gratitude, I adapted a famous Beatles song for them. I think you’ll recognize the tune.

I Get Blogging With a Little Help From My Friends

What would you think if I blogged infrequently,
Would you stand up and stop reading me.
Lend me your ears and I’ll share some stories,
And I’ll try not to post uselessly.
Oh I get blogging with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, I get blogging with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends.

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to like.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to like.

What do I do when my drive is away.
(Does it worry you to be alone)
How do I feel by the end of the day
(Are you sad because you’re on your own)
No, I get blogging with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, get inspired with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, gonna to try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I need somebody to share.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to share.

Would you join in a spontaneous team?
Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.
What do you see when you turn off your screen?
I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.
Oh, I get blogging with a little help from my friends,
Mmm I get inspired with a little help from my friends,
Oh, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends

Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to tweet.
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to tweet.

Oh, I get blogging with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, gonna try with a little help from my friends
Ooh, I get inspired with a little help from my friends
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends,
with a little help from my friends

Photo credit trevinc

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure of attending a talk by Ira Glass, host of the popular NPR program This American Life. Ira was there as part of the Alex Krieger ’95 Memorial Lecture series, given each spring in memory of Vassar student Alex Krieger, who was killed in an automobile accident during the spring of his freshman year.

Krieger loved humor, and his parents honor his memory by inviting outstanding American writers and humorists to speak to the students. Past speakers have included  Tom Wolfe, Wendy Wasserstein, John Irving, P. J. O’Rourke, Calvin Trillin, Jules Feiffer, Oliver Sacks, Tony Kushner, David Sedaris, Michael Chabon, Sarah Vowell, Gail Collins, Augesten Burroughs, and, most recently, Frank Rich.

When Ira walked out on stage, he sat down at a plain table with some sound equipment. Then he shut the lights out and began to speak. It was awkward at first, but I quickly relaxed in my chair and began to feel the magic of listening to him on the radio. It was the perfect beginning.

Ira rambled from one subject to another, recounting his experiences at NPR and humbly sharing some of his best and his worst moments as a reporter and master storyteller. He eventually turned on the lights and offered a few pearls of wisdom.

You don’t need anyone’s permission to be creative.

Start creating. Now. You don’t have to wait for lessons or school or a job to unleash your creativity and validate your talent. You need to work at it, whatever “it” is – music, writing, film, singing, accounting, blogging, landscaping, cooking.

Even he has to work at it. His staff conceives and produces dozens of stories for one show. Many of them get cut. The Onion writers generate hundreds of headlines at a time – again, most get thrown away.

You will not produce a masterpiece on Day 1.

Ira cautioned students that if they wanted to work on his show, they had to have a body of work to show them before they even apply. Technology barriers are so low that there’s little excuse for not producing your own work.

And his corollary to this…

At first, you will probably suck at what you do, even if you love it.

Give yourself permission to fail. In every failure there is a lesson.

To illustrate, Ira played a clip from a story he did seven years into his radio career at NPR. SEVEN YEARS. It was truly awful.

He was reporting on the rising price of corn, and by the time he got to the urgent tortilla shortage, we were all in stitches with him. The story had no point, no message, no purpose. It was just facts and anecdotes thrown into a jumbled mess. It was easily forgettable, unlike his work at This American Life. I admire his grace and humility for revealing a work he’d probably rather forget.

My friends at MomsRising have a lovely way of dealing with failure. They hold a joyful funeral for their mistakes. They embrace them – pulling the plug on something that’s not working, not assigning blame and analyzing what went wrong.

If you’re going to beat yourself up, at least take notes and do a better job next time.