The Perks and Perils of Daily Practice

Photo by Daniel Chekalov on Unsplash

Shaunta has been encouraging me to find a mantra: a saying, a phrase to direct me through the new year. She’s suggested more than a few, but I haven’t found the right one, really.

Part of it may be that I am too cynical for mantras. That wouldn’t surprise me at all.

But so, far, the closest thing that I have to a guiding phrase for the year comes from Alice Ripley, one of my favorite Broadway stars. A few years ago, she came out with an album of cover songs. In some of the interview materials surrounding the release, she talked about how she loved to sing these songs; how she’d pick up her guitar and she’d just fall into them every day.

And she gave her album the perfect name:

Courtesy of Alice’s bandcamp page.

Daily Practice, Volume 1. I’m in awe of that name. It suggests an ethos of constant repetition, a daily schedule, a habit, a practice. There’s an air of hard, menial work behind the joy of art.

I wasn’t ready for that lesson in 2011. Even though I began writing my first novel a little before that, and I, indeed, did tinker around with it daily, it was a difficult thing. A foreign thing. Something that I bristled against.