In response to my Ask the Website Maker blog post, a reader asked about my Moments of Joy series, curious about what moments I include, whether any moments are unpublished, and how I write the notes. That question inspired this blog post.
In Februrary 2023, I blogged one of, if not the first, of my “Moments of Joy” blog posts. I ended the blog post with a call for readers to share moments that have brought them joy, as well as an observation:
What moments have brought you joy lately? For me, it’s often the smallest interactions or observations.
My observation, that the smallest interactions or observations bring me a lot of joy, fuelled a year of storytelling, allowing me to venture into a new form of writing.
Prior to the Moments of Joy series, the idea of storytelling may have been a bit beyond me. Indeed, back when I was in school, I struggled with creative writing, opting always to write discursive or critical essays when possible. I preferred the process of researching facts, structuring an argument, and following a specific structure. My love of this kind of writing led me to a career in technical writing, in which I spent little time practicing narrative or poetry.
As I have been writing more, I crave new challenges: new topics about which to write, new structures, new forms. The “Moments of Joy” helped me verge further away from writing mainly technical blog posts to explore new topics. I wanted to write about something I knew.
It was comfortable for me to think back on the day or week and consider things that made me smile: I had inspiration without having to jump over the how should I get started? hump with which I struggled in school when it came to creative writing. Writing about moments of joy, I had a seed of inspiration. After writing my first few posts, I found momentum: I loved this medium.
A year on, I find that “Moments of Joy” is about more than writing about moments: it is about the environment of those moments and their resonance. I became a storyteller and I didn’t even know it. I tell stories of joy and wonder.
Entries in the “Moments of Joy” series usually begin as a note in my working (digital) notebook. Over the course of writing posts for the series, I have practiced the mental muscle of writing down when something is interesting or fascinating.
I aim to take notes on things that are likely to be resonant to more than just me, and not dependent on being in a specific place: conversations I have had with strangers, seeing people do interesting things, watching Nature, comments from friends. My challenge is to turn these moments, fleeing as they are — with many lasting no more than a few minutes — into prose.
When I take notes, I usually start with a few words that describe exactly what the moment is. That is my anchor. I may then write comments on the environment. These help me paint the scene. My notes are brief because I write them after or during a moment. I want to miss as little as I can, and so I cannot spend too much time writing details. I aim to write the blog post the day I took a note, or on the day or two after. If I wait too long, the note — potentially with only a few words as my anchor — ages and I forget the context around the moment.
Sometimes, a moment sticks in my mind so much that it is there for days. This happens often when I am traveling. I often do not write much when I am travelling, but I take notes for what I could write. In those cases, I try to take more notes.
Naturally, I cannot document every story. But I’m not sure I would want to, for the goal is not to tell every story but to focus on those that I think I can write about. I try to focus on the ones where I think I have enough information to write something that represents the moment and what it means to me.
The beautiful irony of the series is that, as I write, I am finding joy in what the series means to me. “Moments of Joy” is a way for me to reflect, with gratitude and excitement and curiosity, on what I have seen recently. Through the series, I have grown better at paying attention to my surroundings, and reveling in tiny moments that make me smile. My creative writing skills are challenged, which helps me become a better writer. And I have the pleasure of sharing stories with others.
As I did in one of the first post, if not the first post in the series, let me ask: What moments have brought you joy lately? You don’t need to share them with anyone, but I challenge you to think about some things that have made you smile recently. Next time you are outside, look around and see if anything in particular makes you joyful. It could be the season and how it changes the plants, seeing someone help someone else, a conversation that left you feeling good, or something else.
