The September Silence – 2019

It’s that time of the year when I step away from all social media for a month. A friend calls it the September Silence, which is now what I call it.

September is a month kicking off several things I look forward to:

• The tenth anniversary of The Juggling Writer. (It’s funny to me that I don’t post about the anniversary on social media each year because it occurs during my break.)
• My wife and I break our cabin fever. Summers in Texas make getting outside a not-so-pleasant thing. And so, my wife and I tend to stay in, like many up north do when winter arrives. With the sun setting earlier, evening walks return. I look forward to that.
• The beginning of what I view as my writing new year.

My Writing New Year

While it stays hot in Texas well into November, September reminds me of when I lived up north. Crisp mornings start creeping in, and with it, darkness. I love that time from September to February. It seems made for writing.

It’s not that I do my best writing during this time, but it’s when writing feels best.

There’s another benefit to making September my writing new year, though…

Year-End Regrets

Each year, it seems I hear more people claim the current year somehow seemed to pass by quicker than the last. This year is no different. Things planned get lost in the rush of days, and before you know it, the holiday race is on. By year’s end, people talk about how “next year” they will do all they intended to do this year!

Making September such an important time is a check on the year. If time flew by and there are things I wanted to get to, but didn’t, I have four months to put things back on track. (Whether I do is another story, but I typically plan the rest of my writing year and achieve the things I set out to do.)

The Silence

While a friend calls this the September Silence, the world continues to be loud…but that loudness is not amplified by social media. I can see a news story, think about it (maybe even discuss it with a friend or two), and then move on without dozens of [often ill-informed] takes. (Piled up, one after another.)

It usually takes a couple days to lose the compulsion to check things online when I take breaks from the things I do. But once that compulsion is gone, I turn into my head more than usual when I have moments to myself. I open notebooks and work on stories rather than check my phone to see what’s up in the world.

This is not to say I don’t miss out. Every September Silence usually has me coming back in October surprised by things people shared on social media that I missed. But the biggest things that matter more directly to me find a way to be known.

And because of that, for the thirty days that begin my favorite time of the year, the world seems to move a bit slower…and from the silence, bigger things happen.