Monday Mug 25

Hello, my writer people! I am so happy to be back. It never seems to fail that my February goes by so quickly each year. This year I lost a couple of weeks to the bitter cold, snow, and ice. There are many things to do on a farm in this type of weather and none of it in a heated area. I am sitting here with my mug of coffee because now it apparently puts me to sleep. (I never saw that one coming.) Though I think this speaks to the lack of sleep in my world lately. 

Something I want to talk about tonight is the things we once used, which might work again. No, I’m not telling you to get back into that lousy relationship, so don’t go there. I am talking about planning. I’m a bit obsessed with planners and all stationary. I had using this daily planner for a couple of years now to keep my stress levels lower. When I saw a day at a time, it was wonderful because I was just focused on that day. It kept me more in my present moment. 

However, I started to put some of my daily tasks off to the next day, not realizing how full the next day was. I realized this year I needed to go back to a weekly planner to make sure I wasn’t overloading myself. A planner I used to love and use often was a passion planner, but I had a couple of bad experiences. I was too picky when it came to size and bleed-through. There was nothing else on the market that would meet my needs, so I got a passion planner this year, and it was amazing! There was no bleed-through with my zebra highlighters. I absolutely love it, and I continue to feel more accomplished!

My writing is going great right now because I am taking the pressure off myself to be perfect. I have decided to come back to the art of playing with writing so my inner child can have some joy again. The scheduled I am on right now is writing every other day for 10 minutes to an hour. The writing I have been doing has been all prompt-based as of late because of the isolation I am still living in. When I was going to the office and out in society daily, many events sparked ideas for me, but I find prompts working for me now. I get these prompt through Instagram and share a lot of what I find on my page. You can find them here. I finished The Artist Way, and I felt so much better as an artist. 

Writing groups I am involved in right now are Story A Day and a Patreon group for Tammy B. In both of these groups, I am learning from other writers and learning about writing in general. Tammy’s group has great education around publishing, being a writer, and fun prompts. Story A Day had conversions about what is going on in the short story world and focused on community. It is nice to be able to answer questions and to ask questions. There is so much knowledge out there, and it is nice to bounce the information off other writers. I would recommend anyone not in a writing group or who doesn’t have writing connections to reach out and find some. 

The big event I am attending this month is going to the AWP Conference virtually. I was so excited about going to this event in person because it was scheduled for my state this year. However, I am even more excited about the virtual option because I won’t miss a word of what is being said. I hope you are having a great year so far, and like always, just keep writing. 

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Monday's Mug 018

Hello Everyone! Welcome back to Monday’s Mug! I always love to be drinking from my mugs daily, but Monday is the day I like to catch up on what has been happening since we last talked. Tonight I am drinking an herbal mint tea and loving it. So, tonight we would definitely be outside enjoying this mug because it is colder weather here and I love it!! Have I ever told you Fall is my most favorite season of the year? What is your favorite season?

While we sip from our mugs, I’d tell you it been a long time since I checked in with everyone. July was a busy month with family medical issues. It was stressful waiting for answers only to have more tests to be run and more waiting. Even now, a month later, we still have no answers about what is going on. I know I am a little cryptic here, but I need to work on my patience is the moral of the story. 

While we sip from our mugs, I would tell you have been doing a lot of reflection these last couple of weeks. I have been talking personality test, which I love and reflecting on myself as the person I have become now. I was marked as an INFJ, which I have been for years that really didn’t surprise me. I took an enneagram test and found out I was just as much a 1 as I am a 4. These all made sense about who I am as a person. I am a perfectionist striving to be creative. I have not quite figured out that path. It isn’t like I base my life on what these tests say; it helps to understand who I am more. Do you ever take tests like these?

While we sip from our mugs, I’d tell you I haven’t been writing much. Not writing is driving me crazy. I have been redoing websites, and while it has been a creative outlet for me, it is not the same as writing. I love creating a website to be visually pleasing. Write though has been my lifeblood for so long that it has been strange without. It’s like I am walking around without the watch I wear daily or whatever you have daily, and you forget it at home. I was on a kick at the start of July writing. I had gotten back on my favorite site 4thewords.com and was busting through the ceiling of what I was trying to do just get the words out.

While we sip from our mugs, I would tell you haven’t got to be part of writing groups much lately. I have had internet problems a lot this last month, so tonight was the first night I had gotten to see by StoryADay people in like two months. It was great to see people’s faces and to get to know them better. I think I talked a couple of people’s ear off towards the end of the call. I miss talking to people, but my favorite way is one on one. 

While we sip from our mugs, I would tell you right now I don’t know where my writing is heading. I still want to be published, but I haven’t been making any process towards that. It is like saying I will run a 5 k, and I only walk 10 minutes a day. Again I think I am too hard on myself because I have to process many life events, and then I wonder if I am too easy on myself. Perhaps soon, I will find a balance and overcome my struggle. 

Until next time just write. 

Monday's Mug 017

Hello friends! Welcome back to my Monday Mug. It is hot here in the Midwest, and summer has arrived. It is excellent outside before 7 am and after 7 pm, but without a breeze, the daytime temps can take it out of you. Our weather has been strange this year we had a lot of rain in May. I am settling down with my cup of tea tonight. I will get you some if you would like. 

If we had a mug, I’d tell you I feel like I am being tested this year in what I know about my limits. I volunteered to do something outside of my comfort zone when it comes to social media. Doing media in this way was a risk for me to see what I could produce and what type of progress I could make for this client. It made me see how much I could be there for someone else.  I loved helping them with the successes of their business. It was a victory for me in more ways than one, and I hope it will lead to future endeavors.

If we had a mug, I’d tell you about doing the NYC Midnight Challenge for micro-fiction in May because we haven’t spoken since in a while. It was so much fun and a lot harder than I expected. I was given an action, a genre, and a word to use. I enjoy prompts, and because I have been a prompt addict for a long time, so this was perfect. The part I didn’t realize would be so hard is cutting down my word count. I focused on every word I used and what purpose the term served to my story. 

If we had a mug, I would tell you how great superstars for StoryADay have been. People were talking all the time about writing, which was terrific. I live in a more isolated area where there are not many writers locally, and with Covid-19 restrictions, a lot of groups have been going online. I love that StoryADay exists for the community to writers all over the world. There are writers all over the world. It is exciting to meet new people. 

I have been learning about myself this last week and how I haven’t been there for myself in a real and loving way. I want to accomplish many dreams, and I know I’m in my way. I have learned I will go to the moon to encourage someone else and help them believe in their dream, but I haven’t believed in my own. It is time for a change. 

In the meantime, just write. 

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 013

Welcome to another Monday’s Mug. There were a lot of things in my life happening this last week. I will be settling in with a nice hot cup of tea because I’m minimizing my coffee intake. Can I get something for you? The weather has been fickle around here with its up and down temperatures. It is raining in the morning and snowing at night. I felt I was a lot like the weather this last week in my productivity.

I few new things for 2020 I am doing are night pages every evening before bed on the 4thewords.com. If you don’t know about this website, it is for writers, and you can try it free for 30 days to see if you do like it.  I get in some writing for the day, and some days I do prompts instead. I call mine night pages, and I know I am not going by the rules of Morning pages in The Artist Way, but writing my pages at night on a computer at this point is what works for me.  I love the idea of doing a written journal, but I have yet to keep up with journals. 4thewords gives me incentives because I get to fight monsters and go on quests. It is not all about the game, though, and is more focused on writing than I expected. The way you defeat monsters is by writing I find this very fitting. Writing is the way I beat some of life’s monsters as well. 

I had a terrible Monday my dog of 17 years died. She had been going downhill for a while, but she finally gave up Monday. She had been such a huge part of my life through some very dark times. She was my friend and sometimes the only “person” I talked to for long stretches of my life. This might seem strange to you, but I have to say that is one thing that living in the country has always provided for me is a vivid imagination. I have talked to animals my whole life because there were no neighbor kids to hang out with. We grew up on a dairy farm, and it takes a lot of work. There were no times when we were able to leave and take vacations. The cows needed us every day twice a day. It was fun, but I have to say that my imagination and stories were being created long before I ever knew how to write any of them down.

Would you like some more to drink? 

Last week was also the first contest I have ever entered for writing. I was scared, no doubt, but after being with the Story A Day SuperStars for a couple years now, some of the fears I never thought I even had I’m realizing are fading away. I had submitted some of my work in the past, but nothing ever came of it. I was concerned at times with never being good enough. I was taking my world of writing way too seriously. 

In this last year, especially when I have felt like I have been treading water. I have been moving forward with my ability to deal with criticism. The rejection was something that terrified me, but now I am looking forward to being rejected because at least I know I am no longer in my own way, and I doing it. I am fulfilling my dream of being a published writer. I know I will be accepted one day. I have been working on my craft and I am devoting time daily to my art. 

I will talk a little more about the contest later this week, but in the middle of the contest, my family got sick. I had to be miss work a couple of days. I was trying to care for others while I was ill myself, and it was not good at all. It was a tough few days. So during that time, I wasn’t really focused on the short story contest at hand, and it was tough to get back into that frame of mind. I was happy my Story A Day group was there to support me, and one of them was doing the contest as well. We both really want to propel ourselves out into the writing world again. 

I have to go for now but remember to just write. 

Monday's Mug 004

Hello again. Thanks for joining me for another Monday’s Mug. I have one of my favorite mugs I got from a local craft fair full of water. Today has been busy and this week will be as well. I am sitting outside again because I love being out here the summer. 

I would like to tell you about my week last week. I had struggled with a blog for a couple of weeks, and I had it written. I had even edited it already once, but for some reason, I didn’t like it. There are times when I feel like it just isn’t the right time to publish a blog. Like there is something inside of me that says not yet. Then a week or two later I get the post it now buttons pushed inside me. I don’t know where this comes from or why. I wonder if you ever get the same feeling about writing or something in your life?

I will continue with my mug of water tonight and tell you last week had its ups and downs for sure. I have been working on taking my reading up a notch and also my productivity in general. I have become a little planner crazy right now I am working out of two. I have a Happy Planner everything is in, and then I carry a bullet journal that has my daily two do lists. Now that I am managing three sites, it has been more intense. 

I did Story A Day again this year. I did write a lot more than I ever thought I would get done because May is a full month for me. It is a month full of social events, deadlines, and most of all, my joy for writing. I allowed myself to miss days this year. I have gotten much better about not beating myself up about not finishing a story every day and just moving forward. It helps to have Julie Duffy’s voice in my head. If you have not checked out her podcasts, they are, and her voice is so soothing to me. She does not know I am talking about her. Julie’s podcasts can be found at Itunes and also directly on the StoryADay website. 

I got to have a meeting with my online writing group tonight. It was great to talk to them, and even though I am quiet, I like listening to what they have to say about what they are reading, writing, and submitting. I have not reached the submission process yet because I am a little afraid, but I also know I need to revise a bunch of stories. Revision is probably my least favorite part of the processes. I am still looking for ways to make it more fun if you have suggestions leave them in the comments. I think it is just like doing laundry though because I enjoy wearing the clothes I just don’t want to have to wash them and put them up.

I have been embracing working on my short story pieces more these days. Short stories were my emphasis in college because it was fun to me. I wish I could find the stories I wrote in college. I am sure that would give me a good laugh and maybe inspire something else. There are times I am hard on myself for taking so many years off from writing, but I am also happy to be where I am now meeting the friends I have through this process. 

I hope you have a good evening and the rest of your week is full of little stories. 

Monday's Mug 003

Hello! Thank you for spending some time with me. It is Monday’s Mug time where we talk about what happened over the past week. So grab your mug and settle in with me for a little talk.

This morning I’m having coffee, and after going two weeks without it, I want it again. Would you like some coffee?  I thought so. I’m sitting outside with you and will grab you a blanket too. It is cold this morning when it becomes Spring I love being outside. It makes it a little harder to get my writing done. This last week I was going to plant but out temperatures dropped so low I decided to wait till next week. 

My writing has been slower this last week. I had a couple of pretty lousy day Tuesday and Wednesday when it came to writing. I ended up getting nothing accomplished. So I was behind on my deadlines for last week. I always think I will have time to make them up over the weekend, but I again wasn’t able to carve out much time. 

My favorite time to write on the weekends has been Saturday mornings. I have also been pulling away from the keyboard as well which is very unlike me. There is nothing wrong with my computer, and it is usually my preferred way to write. For some reason, though I am enjoying not having to look at a screen for a while. It makes me miss the days when I was a kid and technology didn’t exist as it does now. 

I did write a little bit, but I am having to forgive myself for not being as productive as I usually am. I think May is just a hard month for me to write.  I supposed it is because it is that transition month when school is getting out soon, and summer is coming so quickly. 

 I have continued to do Story A Day and enjoyed the encouragement on that site. I have also made some real friends over there, and there is nothing more satisfying as of late than to have people in my life I can talk about writing with. 

Well, it is too cold to stay out here, so I am going to cut this short today. I hope you have a productive week. 

Monday's Mug 002

Hello! Thank you for joining me this Monday Mug. This weekend went by in a flash, and I am a night writer, so here we are. I have some Irish Breakfast tea with honey and sugar in my mug tonight. I still fighting to be able to talk because of allergies. I am not sure why it has been so bad this year. I guess the allergies are trying to take me out. 

Would you like some tea too? I have made fresh pot. Honey? Milk?

So we are outside tonight, but that is because I just cannot resist the Spring weather. You have to bear with me as I sneeze and cough a little today. I am actually much better than last Monday, but I still have a lot to get done tonight. 

I would like to talk about going to a conference this weekend for single moms. It was amazing and so encouraging. It is definitely something I needed. There were two main speakers and three breaks out sessions. While I didn’t really get any ideas about writing while I was there, I did on the ride to and from the conference. 

If you ever end up in a car with me be prepared for the confessions. I tend to talk about everything in the car. I felt terrible for my companion that was driving, but I just could not shut up. We would talk about something, and it would always remind of a story. Then I would tell the story, and we would move on to the next subject. It made me miss the days of actual storytelling instead of stories being written all the time. 

Have you ever listened to a story teller?

There were so many pieces of my past that I do wish I could tell in stories, but I am not ready yet. I need more distance and time from the subject before I will commit it to paper. So many things have happened in my life, I am not sure I will ever really be able to write about. The scars are just too deep, and it still hurts too bad. 

Would you like so more tea? I am getting a second cup. 

I thought I would have so much time to work on writing this weekend, but that isn’t what happened at all, so I was a little upset by that. I am learning to forgive myself though and move on. I still don’t have the habit of writing every day, but yet I do write something every day. So maybe working on things that deal with my writing counts for writing too. 

Tonight I am keeping it short because I have a meeting with the Super Stars writing group and I am excited. I can’t see what writing sparks might come up from things they say.

I love all the little things in life that give us so much to write about. 

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.