Twitzilla: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog.

In recent weeks, I've found myself somewhat paralyzed by a crushing attack of what I call "Twitzilla". Twitzilla is, in my corner of the universe, a monstrous behemoth formed by an aggregate of writers across the world who are blogging their fingers off on every single topic known to writing man, and doing a much better job of it than I possibly could (or so Twitzilla whispers terrifyingly, lovingly, in my ears). 

Don't get me wrong: I adore Twitter and all the resources it provides. In fact, it ranks right up there with chocolate on the list of kickass things that make me happy. It's possibly the greatest thing that ever happened to writers, from the blog posts to the book promotions to the endless cups of tea and pictures of people's cats and seven-hundred-eleventy-three gabillion other ways we all get to know that, by god, we are not alone. Best of all, we don't have to actually see each other or talk to anyone face to face; we can hunch over our laptops in the wee hours of the night and read and write to our solitary hearts' content. 

But there's a whole lot of must-haves that can be a little soul-crushing intimidating as well. You must have a blog! You must have a platform! You must write interestingly and usefully and other-such-adverb-ly so that you can have many, many followers, or no one will ever want to publish you! 

To quote that immortal hero, Bill the Cat: ACK. 

I'm a writer, for crying out loud. I just want to write. (And edit, and read, and occasionally nap on the sofa curled up with a blanket and a book... but I digress.) And while I'll spare you the litany of other responsibilities all  screaming for attention throughout the day, believe me: there are a lot of them. It takes a concerted effort to make time to write every day. 

So the thought of coming up with blog posts on writing and editing techniques that are witty and useful and informative and all those other brilliant things is a little scary. I've spent many a happy hour reading other people's witty, useful, informative, brilliant blog posts on these topics, and you know what?

It's all pretty much covered. Yep. That's it, guys, time to call it a day and go read each other poetry over a tasty microbrew! (Hey, a girl can dream.) 

Coming up with new twists on blog posts on writing and editing techniques now seems to take ingenious acts of creativity that I always assumed I should put towards, y'know, story ideas and incredible poetic images and razor-sharp dialogue that advances the plot. Silly things like that. It seemed like any time I did come up with an idea, I would immediately see the link to someone else's blog post in which they ran with it and, yep, did a fantastic job.

You can imagine my relief when it recently occurred to me that I don't need to be intimidated after all. Something finally sunk in, which is that everyone is just sharing their own experiences (insert platitude about snowflakes here).  I can leash up Twitzilla and take that bad boy for a walk. If I just do my thing, somewhere out there in the magical interwebs it'll mean something to someone else. 

So, to make a short story long (and I do apologize - you might have noticed by now that I have a slight tendency to ramble), I intend to post on a regular basis now. I'm starting with once a week. I can't promise anything earth-shattering, but I can promise you - and myself - that I'll be posting about my experiences with writing and editing, in the sincere hope that some of it will prove useful to you. And by the way, thank you, in advance, for reading.

Also, I'm curious: what writing blog topics do you find endlessly fascinating? Let me know - I'd love some food for Twitzilla thought.

Creak, creak

If this blog were a box, it would be made of smooth-sanded hardwood and inlaid gold, and I'd be lovingly wiping away a thick layer of dust right now, having rediscovered it among a jumbled pile of loved but forgotten possessions.

Last posted on November 30th, 2009, upon finishing the second draft of my WIP. What's happened during the 16-month ellipsis? Well, most significantly, my 14-month-old daughter happened, who is now snoozing next to me. Almost no actual writing has happened on the WIP; it was reviewed and comment on in detail by an absolutely incredible crit reader, but the only work I've done in response to her comments has taken place in my head. I've read a lot of blog posts lately about moms who started (or went back to) working on a novel the same day their child was born. Kudos to them - it did not happen for me. I think I did write a poem for her the next day, and have written sporadic poems since her birth, but in no way did my writing life possess anything resembling discipline until a week or two ago.

In all honesty, that was due as much to a dormant period in my writing as it was to arrival of The Teensy One. Let me be clear: I'm not making excuses. It's been more than a few years since I realized my creativity goes through periods of dormancy. It used to freak me out, but once I figured out that the times of silence are always followed by outpourings of creative energy, I stopped worrying about it. Nowadays when the muse goes silent, I let her rest for a while, although I listen with a keen ear for her to speak again.

Although this latest cycle of creativity started a couple of weeks ago, the arrival of National Poetry Month helped me get back into a disciplined routine, which feels oh, so good - like a bird on wing. There are a couple of sites I've been using for daily prompts, both of which I found thanks to that perennial friend-of-writers, Twitter.

The first is @robertleebrewer's Poetic Asides blog, which he writes for Writer's Digest: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/. Some good prompts here - some reliable and familiar stand-bys, and some creative prompts that provide good nudges to the brain to approach a poem with a fresh perspective.

The second, Instapoem, is a collaboration between @inkyelbows (Debbie Ridpath Ohi) and Rand Bellavia: http://instapoem.blogspot.com/. This blog features a series of one-word prompts, one for each day of the month, and the rule is to write it within five minutes of seeing the prompt. It's a great concept, although there are days when the word of the day just doesn't strike me; on those days, I just use a word from a different day.

Oddly, a lot of the poetry I've written since I got back into the swing of things has rhymed. I have nothing against rhyming or free verse, but I tend more towards free verse, generally. Not lately, though - it's a little disconcerting to have all these rhymes popping up, but I'm rolling with it and focusing on using them to challenge myself rather than as crutches for simplicity.

Today's prompt from Poetic Asides is to write a "what if" poem. Here's mine:

Songs for Abigail XV

The freight train howls its lonesome song
Cloud upon cloud piles white upon grey
The heron tucks its head under wing
What if you were alive today?


Well, now that the dust is cleaned away, I'm hoping to post semi-regularly on here. No promises, though; some days I'm lucky to get five minutes to myself for a quick writing exercise. Hey, a girl's gotta have her priorities. Cheers.