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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
 "The Soundtrackers Group" 
"Blogging Circle of Friends "
"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
"JAFBG"
"Take up Your Cross"
Thanks for stopping by! 
January 2, 2023 at 1:01am January 2, 2023 at 1:01am
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| "Take up Your Cross" Prompt ▼
Tell about a time that your faith was tested.
If I'm being completely honest, my faith is tested every single day. Organized religion is not something I grew up with, and although I've intellectually made the decision to follow Christ and become a Christian, there are still regular moments where my inherent doubts, skepticism, and desire for empirical evidence test my faith. There are times when I wonder if I've made the right choice, or if I even really understand what I've committed to. As someone who was raised to be exceedingly responsible and self-reliant, it still feels strange to put myself in a position where I'm deferring to someone else's guidance and wishes, especially someone who I don't feel that I clearly hear from on a regular basis.
It feels like this prompt was maybe more oriented toward a defining moment of faith being tested, but the truth for me is that every day is a test of faith. I haven't had any massive, worldview-shattering moments in my spiritual life; it's been more of a steady, repetitive drip-drip-drip of little tests along the way in my daily life. I've probably failed as many of them as I've passed, if not more. But I still wake up every day trying to remain open to whatever God wants to do with my life and seeing where that takes me.
"Blog City Prompt Forum" Prompt ▼
Did you make writing goals for 2023? Did you know WDC has a contest in January where you write a letter to yourself discussing your goals past and present?
As a matter of fact, I do know that this site has a contest in January where entrants can write a letter to themselves discussing goals for the coming year. Unfortunately, I haven't been eligible to enter "Invalid Item" in about eight years since I'm responsible for running it.  But I wrote an (unofficial) entry last year for the heck of it, and I think I might write one again this year because I think it's a good practice and I need entries for "Twenty-three in Eleven " . 
My main writing goal for 2023 is to get back into a regular writing habit. With work and family obligations, writing has taken a serious backseat for me over the past several years, and I really need t get back into the habit. I'd like to have a new script and a new book written by the end of the year, preferably something I'm actually proud of and can nudge further along toward my ultimate goal of actually doing something with it. I'd also like to get back into writing short stories and essays and other things, which is the main reason why I'm pulling blog prompts from a variety of groups. If I don't have anything specific to write on a given day, I'm hoping to at least write a blog entry or two!
"Blogging Circle of Friends Prompt Forum" Prompt ▼
It's the first Monday in January of 2023, so let's start off with the January 2023 calendar prompt form the WDC Anniversary calendar: What is your biggest goal you want to achieve?
My biggest goal for 2023 is to get healthy. I wrote above about my writing goals which are also big goals, but I think the overriding thing I need to focus on is my health. Now that I'm in my *cough* forties *cough* the days of being able to eat whatever I want and live a sedentary existence are pretty much over if I want to improve my odds of living a long life (arguably, those days were over more than a decade ago  ), so I'm feeling like this is the year I need to make some smarter choices like eating better and exercising more.
I don't exactly know what that looks like at the moment, but I read Atomic Habits last year and really loved the way that it broke down establishing new habits and getting rid of bad habits into small, manageable steps. I'm going to try to do something like that with my health decisions this year, the ultimately goal being to look back on 2023 at the end of this year and see the cumulative effect of a number of small, smart decisions that have been made along the way. I'm not committing to any specific amount of weight lost or fitness goals achieved, I just want to start the process of recalibrating to the right direction and start down that path so I have something to build on over the following months and beyond.
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January 1, 2023 at 3:33am January 1, 2023 at 3:33am
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To qualify for my Watch List every month, the following has to be something that I've watched that's new to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a current show, but it can't be reruns or rewatches of something I've already seen. So if I'm including it in this list, it means this month is the first time I've watched it. I'll put "DNF" (Did Not Finish) next to anything that I stopped watching and have no immediate plans to finish.
Movies
 Don't Worry Darling
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
Black Adam
Luck
Pelosi in the House
Emily the Criminal
The Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Bullet Train
Television
 The Good Place (Season 2)
The Good Place (Season 3)
Harry & Meghan
The Sex Lives of College Girls (Season 2)
Emily in Paris (Season 3)
Other
 Writing (James Patterson MasterClass)
Style for Everyone (Tan France MasterClass)
Writing for Television (Shonda Rhimes MasterClass)
The Bible Project
This was a really good month as far as things to watch. On the feature film side of things, LUCK was a pleasantly surprising animated feature from my former employer Skydance, and PELOSI IN THE HOUSE was a great documentary about Nancy Pelosi's life in politics as captured by her daughter Alexandra, a documentary filmmaker who has been following her around for years. BULLET TRAIN was fun, but the real standout this month was THE GLASS ONION which is writer/director Rian Johnson's sequel to KNIVES OUT and, honestly, it might be even better than the first. It was absolutely delightful.
As far as television goes, I finally got back into THE GOOD PLACE and like it even more than I remembered. The second season of THE SEX LIVES OF COLLEGE GIRLS wasn't quite as great as the first season, but it was still a lot of fun to watch. And the HARRY & MEGHAN documentary series, despite being pretty blatant PR work for the couple, was actually very well produced and showed a lot of pieces of their lives together that hadn't been seen up until this point. I don't mind documentaries with an agenda if they're well done, and this one fit both bills.
I also finally noted the MasterClasses I watched this year, which I definitely need to be better about next year. I always forget that I have a membership and then end up binging an entire class in a couple of days, and I'd like to dedicate more time to slowly consuming the content and learning things over the course of the year in 2023. Lord knows there are no shortage of classes for me to take on the service. But the real winner, IMHO, was The Bible Project, which I finally finished this month (alongside finishing reading the ESV translation of The Bible). If you're not familiar with it, The Bible Project is a fantastic resource for those who want a better understanding of The Bible. They produce a series of animated online videos that review and unpack the story, themes, characters, etc. found therein, all of which are very well produced and really helped me with my understanding of the Bible this year as I read it. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to better familiarize themselves with The Bible and it's incredibly rich and complex history.
TOP PICK: The Bible Project
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