Spring Writing Community

I finished up Camp NaNoWriMo with flying colors this year. I got another 30,000 words written on various projects throughout the month. Sadly I didn’t get as much poetry written as I had hoped. There were other short story projects I was experimenting with, and even though I had left poetry behind, it was what I needed right now.

I have already started my participation in the SuperStars at StoryADay. This group writes a story every day in May. I am a prompt addict, so I love this challenge and have participated for a few years now. 

 I can’t tell you how much this group of people have changed my life and how I look at writing. I have forged really great friendships and community within StoryADay. I love May because there can be so much interaction, and each year we get to meet new people. The growth is impressive as I look back on my experiences over the few years of being with StoryADay I have blossomed and grown so much. 

My writing habit lately has been suffering this year. I have taken on a new project for people and their social media, so it has been a little bit busier than I expected. 

This week though, I have been buckling down to write even just a little bit each day. What do I mean by a little bit? I mean, if I get one sentence on the page for me, it is a win. 

Do I want to do more yes, and do I usually yes? But there are days when the exhaustion hits me, and maybe I am just getting a few words out, or perhaps I am just journaling today because I have too many things on my mind today. I believe writing in any form or feeding that creativity helps you be a better writer. 

This weekend is also the NYC Midnight 100 word microfiction challenge.  I have decided to participate in this contest.  I enjoyed the short story challenge so much in January I thought this might be a great way to get my feet wet in Flash Fiction. 

Flash Fiction was not something I was taught about in college. Still, thanks to the age of the internet, I have found many resources to help me navigate the flash fiction world. A writer friend recommended Kathy Fish, and can I say her classes on Skillshare were great for this art. 

I have been learning a lot on Skillshare, brushing up on my German, which I have been doing for the last six months now. There are many drawing classes and just writing courses in general. I am not going to say every class is quality because it isn’t to me just like you are not going to like every book I like. 

This month has a lot of promise, and I will be excited to share with you next week how I have been getting out of my reading funk. 

Don’t forget, just write. 

Monday's Mug 016

Hello Friends! Welcome back to my Monday Mug. I am sitting down on this very rainy day in my living room on my fluffy couch. I will be drinking some green tea again because I am still loving it. 

I can get you a coffee or tea if you would like?

Last week was a blur. I feel like lately, I am busier with doing all these things at home than I was when we were out and about in the world. Now don’t get me wrong I am in no rush to get out and about with this pandemic going on, but sometimes I just want to feel more relaxed in my own home. 

Do you have this feeling too? 

I work at home, and I am incredibly grateful to be able to do this, but my work/home balance is really off right now. I think it is because my office is in my living room, which worked fine when it was just my writing desk, but now it is my daytime working desk too. 14 hours at one desk is a little too much for me. If I am on the couch, then I am still looking at the work desk that reminds me of work, not writing. In fact, I have had to take most of my writing in my bedroom to get it done. 

I find myself on more zoom meetings than I can count because it is educational, community, or school stuff for my children. Now I enjoy a good zoom meeting, but there is only so much screen time I can take. I am homeschooling my child, something I had only ever dreamed of but have been doing full time for about a month now. Our relationship at home couldn’t be better aside from the days when we are exhausted, and cabin fever is getting to us. 

Camp Nano is going great. I am meeting my word count goals, and I am writing a lot. I am not getting a lot of poetry done, but I am writing in general. 

The days I cannot get poetry to flow, I have been working on different aspects of my writing. Currently, I am working on dialogue and trying to get a more realistic feel for it. As well as allowing the character to really shine through. It is not as easy as I thought it might be. I am on the hunt for more exercises for dialogue if you have one for me leave it below or email me. 

The struggle of this stay at home life has been hard. It was only a couple of weeks ago I was able to focus long enough to finish reading a book. I have been keeping a journal of what is happening and when I feel overwhelmed. 

Being overwhelmed for me usually happens when I am on social media too much. Sometimes being overwhelmed is because maybe I was foolish and turned on the news in the morning while I got ready for work. 

I would recommend keeping a journal of what is going on in your life. You never know when you might use these experiences for a writing piece later. 

So until next time, just write. 

Poetry Camp for NaNoWriMo

Hello April! I hope everyone is as safe as they can be. I am here to talk a little bit about Camp NaNoWriMo this year. This year is the first camp with the new NaNo website makeover. It was difficult for me last year in November to get the hang of what we were doing and how it all worked. I have since played around more with the site, and I am enjoying my camping experience. 

The best update I see so far on the NaNo website is that the cabins we had during camp have been turned into permeant writing groups. It certainly doesn’t mean you cannot leave the group you are in if you don’t like it. However, it does mean you have instant access to the buddies you have been writing with twice a year in November too. 

There were some other updates to the projects and goals I have not been as excited about. In the past, I used the hourly timed options as my goal when it comes to my writing. It was a way to build up my writing time during April and July. There are only options for the number of words now. However, you can make your project a little more specific now with drafting, editing, and publishing options as well as the type of writing you are working novel, short story, poetry, nonfiction, and more. 

While I miss the hourly goals, they have made two websites now one, and they more useable all year round. Just being able to talk to your writing group year-round is an exciting thought. If you wanted to track projects with word counts and dates, it is also a valuable tool for free. I think this was a brilliant move on their part to make Camp and Nano more uniform and user friendly. 

I have decided to join a couple of different writing groups this year. I am with my regular group this year. I have been a part of my regular cabin for two years now and a new writing group to expand my writing community. I have been getting to know new writers and chatting with my regular group since mid-March. I recommend trying out different groups if you have never attempted camp before, and it is such a great way to find new people to interact with in the world. 

This year for the camp, I am writing poetry. Poetry was how I started writing. I didn’t write short stories or a novel as a child. It was poetry that came out of me. I couldn’t figure out how to express the emotions running deep in me, so the way they came out was in the written word. For me, it was oral before it was written while I bottle-fed baby calves in the barn. Poetry was dancing in my head and then out of my mouth like a song I always knew but had never heard. I have missed poetry; she was always my first love. It was the thing that understood me before I understood myself. 

Poetry has been something that has trying to get out of me for years now after I tried to silence it. Poetry has been all along bubbling under the surface. I decided to let out this lion inside me out for a solid month to see what I could produce. I am not sure what will happen, but I hope it will help me process my life as my writing often does. I hope to see you in the CampNaNo world and if not…Just write. 

Monday's Mug 007

Hello Everyone! I missed you all in July. I am sitting down to a cup of hot tea tonight and letting the day's worries run off of me. What I can I get for you? I hope you will sit down with me and relax for a few minutes while I catch you up on my last month. 

July was a tough month for me, and I know I am not the only one. It might be because the summer is coming to an end and the school season awaits. There were so many places I wanted to visit and projects I wanted to finish, but I didn't. So I have been spending this month looking at my plans and goals. I was becoming a little more realistic and starting again. 

I did participate in Camp NaNoWriMo this July, and it was a lot of fun. The cabin I was a part of chatted a lot about writing and their projects. I was interested when shared things about their personal life. I changed my project goal to the number of hours I would work on it instead of the number of words I produced. I did win though I switched from words to hours of work on my writing. I worked on a new project that popped up at the end of June and also on short stories for submission. 

Let me fill up your mug.

This month was really about getting my groove back when it comes to writing. I spent a lot of time off of the computer to see if it would help my flame reignite. The lack of a screen did help me get back to the creative space I needed. Sometimes I focus too much on the number of words I am producing rather than what I am writing. A focus on word count was helpful when I'm on a deadline, but too much can take the joy out of writing. 

I did a lot of soul searching last month. I am letting go of the people that are not there for me. I'm throwing out the disappointments of my past and the fears of my future. I am loving myself the best I can each day. I am just going to write. 

Monday's Mug 006

Hello everyone! How was your weekend? Thank you for joining me for my Monday Mug. I am having coffee with my creamer this evening, and I will get you whatever you like as long as it is coffee. I can't believe it is already July. I am just sitting here wondering what happened to the year because I feel like January was yesterday. I have had a busy week, so let's get to it. 

I would bring you into my kitchen table retro 60s with the mustard yellow rolling chairs because the kitchen is where everything gets done. It is night here, and I often start to randomly talk about subjects in the evening because my days are spent listening to others.

So, to start with I had a really rough week last week. I thought things were going good, but for some reason, I had just really been struggling with my writing. It wasn't that I didn't have anything to write about or projects I love, but I just couldn't get myself to walk over and sit in my chair to write. It was mind-boggling to me, and I finally started to reach out to other writers. I had many different opinions to choose from and enjoyed them all. I just wanted a parental butt chewing because I thought that was what I needed. The butt chewing didn't happen, but other advice was given instead. I decided I should stop being so hard on myself for not being at the level I expected of myself. 

I still didn't write much after that, and I do believe some of it was because I was going to be doing Camp NaNo this year. For those of you unaware NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month that happens in November. They have more flexible camp versions that occur in April and July. I am back with a cabin in July I have been in for a couple years to change up the rest of my year. I felt like I just didn't want to write this last week before camp began because this month at camp, I am pushing myself for 50,000 words. Which is odd because only a few sentences ago I said I should stop being so hard on myself. I think my goals may change just so I can breathe a little more. My idea for the camp had also not solidified yet, so I am totally pansting it this year, which also give me a little anxiety. 

Would you like more coffee? I will refill your mug too. 

It was a busy week at my daytime job, which may account for my lack of wanting to write in the evening when I come home. I am trying to figure out how to give myself enough rest so I can be a morning writer.  I have also tried to write in notebooks, and I don't like it. I have tried every pen and paper type I can find, but I still am having problems with it. I think it just because I trained myself in college to type every story I was working on then. I have also come to a place where I am typing as fast as my internal narrator speaks, and I cannot keep up handwriting. I do still enjoy writing poetry out by hand, but I think it is because I play so much with the position of the words as well. 

I had meetings and classes this week that didn't go as planned, but it turned out that is was okay because I really just needed to give myself a break for a few days and work on my mindset with where my life is headed right now. 

I guess I am going to let you get some rest for now and maybe I should get some too. Until next time. 

The Importance of Writing Communities

I would like to share my journey with writing communities over the last year. I have always loved the idea of community, but my real-life practice of it has not always been what I was expecting. I find it hard to connect with others at times and enjoy my time alone. I have had the challenge of living in an area where there are not many writing groups. These circumstances led me to start looking into the online world of writing groups.

The first thing I found was NaNoWriMo which is writing a novel in November. It was a 50,000-word challenge that I thought sounded terrific, but without an actual steady writing practice in motion at the time, it proved to be complicated. 

This organization has a branch called Camp NaNoWriMo. Where the options for goals were more flexible, and the writing groups (cabins) were smaller. It was easier to find writers I had things in common with such as the genre of writing interest or I found writers who wanted to read what I was writing. 

This organization had functional groups, but I wanted more. I found Facebook groups were becoming the trend for those communities. Many of the NaNo communities had their own Facebook groups that I was added to but after a month or two after the challenge talking fades. I did have a good camp session where there was a lot of talking on the actual site, but I later found out they had been doing camp together for quite a few years. 

I wanted something more out of a group of writers. I knew I needed more time to get to know people. A community that would be devoted to writing and communication for more extended amounts of time. I was convinced at the time I wanted to write a novel, but upon further reflection of my college years, I remember how much I enjoyed short stories. 

I began googling about short shorties where to find them and who was writing them. I came across this site called Story A Day. It seems interesting there were a lot of prompts that I loved, and a challenge to write a story each day for May. They also had a private group called Super Stars. It was a chance for me to take to have community and to meet a challenge head-on for writing. 

So, I began trying my best to put myself out there and become part of the group. It was hard at first because I had not had a lot of communication with writing circles for the last few years. However, I continued to put myself out there and kept trying. It was a significant risk for me to take, but it was so worth it in the end. 

Over time I have gotten to know a lot of people and feel comfortable sharing my work again to get feedback on it. This was a huge stepping stone in the right direction for me. I opened up and let these people in. They have been there through some of the hardest writing days I have had so far. It is lovely to hear from them and get to know them.

I don’t get anything out of sharing this with you. I just want you to know there are communities out there that can meet your needs. There are places you can go and find the writing support that you have longed for. It may not be Story A Day or NaNoWriMo maybe it is a different community I have never heard of. 

My Top Three Reasons for Getting in a Writing Community are:

1. Writing communities give you a place to go when you have questions.

2. They are encouraging when you are having a hard time with your pages.  

3. It is more fun to do things as with a friend than it is to do them alone. Yes, I’m talking to you introverts. 

People who are interested in the same things can be critical to our future decisions and the road we choose in life. I am part of the Story A Day community again this year today is the last day to sign up if you are interested. I just finished Camp NaNoWriMo for April. I am taking the risk to get to know new people and to build new relationships with others.  I can’t wait to see what will happen.