Tag Archives: writing

Blog Party!

Let’s Get This [Blog] Party Started!

Hi, it’s us. We know, we know. You don’t know us. Not the collective us, that is. We are Vienna, Lesley, Mariela, Zach, and Shannon…five bloggers coming together for the month of May to cross-promote each other’s work, and hopefully elevate our own work in the process.

We decided to call our month-long endeavor Blog Party, like a block party. If you are a podcast listener, you may be familiar with a similar endeavor by that platform called #TryPod during March. We were inspired.

So, here we are. Just the five of us. We all have very different blogs and very different audiences.

As there are five Mondays in the month, we will take turns posting on each other’s blogs, and therefore, you will get a chance to see each of our works. If you find you like one of these new blogs, please consider subscribing.

Here’s a little more about each of us and our blogs…

blog party viennaVienna: Hi! I began my blog, Vienna writes, in the summer of 2014 and blogged on an infrequent basis until very recently. This year, in the last week of March, I decided it was time for me to blog again simply because I wanted to get back in the habit of writing. My blog is an exploration of reclaiming my voice as a writer, and I have committed myself to one blog post every day. It includes posts of my thoughts, memories, and inspirations that are slightly longer than a drabble. Feel free to come along for the ride, the ultimate destination of which I have no idea.

Photo on 6-6-16 at 3.55 PM (1)Lesley: I’m a lifelong fiction writer who’s half-way through a low-residency MFA at Warren Wilson College. I began my blog in 2011, when my sons were pre-teens–its focus was on writing amidst the chaos of family life. My (infrequent) posts have of late focused on writing craft and engaging the world through writing. You can read my blog, the Art of Practice, here.

12819474_10110279046440424_7143565581058908509_oMariela: I have a passion for linguistics, culture and travel. Back in 2013, I started a blog to share my personal journey’s experiences with my family and friends, called El periplo de Mariela (or Mariela’s Journey). Although the blog’s name was in Spanish, posts were 99% in English. For the first couple of  years I wrote with certain frequency but then life took over and I eventually stopped. Fast forward to April 2017 and, after a 1-year hiatus from writing, I’m launching Mar Explora. For now, its main feature is still the blog but this site will be an ever-evolving project..I’m excited to see what path it’ll take me!

Zachary Steele BWZach: Hello, I guess. Is that right? I’ve never been good at social … things. I’m a writer of fiction, currently delving into Middle Grade fantasy, where the kid in me is quite happy, thank you. For the most part, I’ve morphed my blog into a collection of posts about all the truly bad choices I’ve made in life. I figure others should be able to laugh at me as much I do. So, if you’re up for feeling better about your choices, check out I Have a Wrong Way to Go, drop a comment, talk about operatic mice, share stories, or, you know, stuff.

DSC_2205Shannon:  Greetings! I’m a storyteller and story coach living in Atlanta, GA. I’ve been blogging since 2006. My current blog is embedded in my website. I tend to write irregular reflections on storytelling, projects, and my journey. My subscribers are almost entirely a part of my personal network, so I’d love to have a chance to grow beyond the people who just want to make sure I don’t starve. My blog can be found here.

So, look for the first edition from Vienna to be coming out on all our blogs next Monday. We look forward to getting to know you, getting to know each other, and helping you get to know us all. It’s a lot like mingling at a party, don’t you think?

Cheers,

Us

Writers: messy or meticulous?

Ever come across a notebook filled with your handwriting but no memory of it? Or a book with sticky flags adorning its pages, but no idea of why you attached them? Me too. When it comes to tracking my free-writes, story drafts, my analytical papers, I have verged on, and crossed into, chaos for much of my writing life. But pursuing an MFA has made it very clear that my creative impulses are worthless, and my craft analysis superficial, unless I can find what I need, pronto.

I have organizational tendencies–my grocery lists are made according to the store layout. My books are alphabetized. I meet deadlines. I’m sure there’s a Deep Psychological Reason that I haven’t treated my creative writing with the same respect I do food, books and freelance assignments. But since I spend plenty of time in therapy already, so rather than muse about what that Reason might be, I’m going to share the quick-and-dirty organizational habit I have begun forming.

I’ve come up with  three main components of my Effort at Organization.

  1. Deliberate intentions
  2. Direct interaction
  3. Daily integration

    Year-long planning to keep the Big Picture in mind.

    Year-long planning to keep the Big Picture in mind.

Deliberate Intentions: I spend 5-10 minutes each morning with my calendars. Two on the wall, a year-long, dry-erase one (available from Neuyear.net) and a weekly one (based on Jeffrey Davis’s Mind Rooms Guide). My third calendar is my online/phone calendar.

From Jeffrey Davis's Mind Rooms Guide

From Jeffrey Davis’s Mind Rooms Guide

I review what I’d intended to do yesterday, figure out if  I need to change today’s plan. Then I take a square of pretty paper and jot down rough time guesstimates for each activity and adjust if my total is more than the time I have available. Note: the process of setting up a year-long calendar will get another post. That’s a Big Process.

Notes . . . to action

Notes to action!

Direct Interaction: I scribble all over my books, my drafts, the feedback from my MFA supervisor. It’s the way I think. When I’m done, I put a big sticky note on the front cover of the book or the first page of the draft or the feedback sheets, and I jot down what I want to do next: type into ss draft ASAP. Type into “ideas file.” Ignore until after winter break. Re-read in June 2017. Submit to WHR by Nov. 30. These go into the Daily Integration pile.

Daily Integration: I allot time each day to tackle the accumulated direct interaction pieces. The pile of these isn’t so high that it’s wobbling, but I have yet to eliminate it entirely.

It has taken me YEARS to get here. And every single week, there’s at least one day where I completely, and I mean completely, fail. Maybe because the book I’m reading is so good I ignore everything else for the day (Like So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. And The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder.)

I’m befriending failure; all that therapy has gotten me to the place where I can forgive myself, take a nap, or just go straight to bed and start again the next day.

I’d love to hear how you organize your writing life–and if you occasionally verge or cross into chaos, how do you extricate yourself? Share with us in the comments.

 

 

 

 

Today I went live at The Write Practice . . .

. . . as a guest blogger. What fun! Check it out at The Write Practice blog.

Thanks to Joe Bunting and his terrific Write Practice team for giving me the opportunity. I’ll follow this post — about similes — with another one or two about metaphors later this year. Onward!