Monthly Archives: February 2013

As tomorrow begins a new month (already?!), I thought today would be a good time to officially lay out the formula I’d like to follow for blogging the rest of the year. I’m finding it easier to make time each day to blog, and the process seems less like a chore than it did when I began 58 (whoo hoo!) days ago. My husband has been very supportive, giving me the time I need after dinner in the evenings to “do my homework.” Sometimes though, I still have difficulties deciding what to write about, so simple posts can suck up a couple hours of precious time. During a recent episode of writer’s block, I was perusing other bloggers’ pages and discovered that some of the most successful bloggers have created a schedule for the content of their writing so that regardless of how often they post, they know what, at least in general terms, they are going to write about. In addition to reducing their stress as they sit before a blank screen, they are letting their readers know when to tune in to find the particular genre(s) they like–if a reader’s sole interest is poetry, there’s no need to visit Blogger X’s site every day if she only posts a poem on the third Friday of each month. Now assured that having a formula is not somehow cheating, here’s the plan for Things I See and Know going forward…

Monday Mix No telling what you’re going to get from me on Mondays. Could be a response to a weekly photo challenge, a book review, a testing-out-a-new-recipe saga à la Julie and Julia, a kid’s story, a poem, a letter to the guy who cut me off in the roundabout…

Tuesday Tales It’s all about fiction on Tuesdays. I’m sticking with flash fiction for now, so it’ll be a story of 1000 words or less. The six-sentence format has been challenging and rewarding, so expect to see more of those on Tuesdays. The subjects of my stories will come from photos I’ve taken, prompts from sites like The One Minute Writer and StoryADay, and sometimes out of thin air. Any and all reader suggestions will also be considered!

What’s She On About? Wednesday This’ll be the day when I can ramble about the antique chair I rescued at the auction, voice my opinions about hot topics in the news, whine about another day with no sun, reminisce about the days when I could eat a banana split without dramatically affecting my waistline… I’m just gonna pick a subject that’s on my mind, then tell it like it is, no apologies.

Deep Thought Thursday Thursdays will be the day I tackle a question from Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions. It’s available online in pdf format, so I hope I’m not violating any copyrights by posting a question each week. I’m nervous about Thursdays, because I’ve previewed some of the questions and they are far from easy. The answers will require a very thorough examination of my ethics, my beliefs, and my dedication to each in difficult situations. I promise to choose each week’s question at random, not to pre-select easy or noncontroversial ones, and hope that my honest responses will perhaps inspire some conversation in the comments rather than unleashing a flood of judgement and condemnation.

Fiction Friday The other night when I was supposed to be writing, I was instead surfing other blogs for inspiration and came across a Friday Fictioneers post on Joe’s Musings. The idea is to study the featured photo of the week and use the image to weave a fictional tale of just 100 words. I’ve been having such a blast trying to fit a beginning, middle, and end into my six-sentence postings, that I couldn’t pass up this challenge. Friday will have the added benefit of being able to use someone else’s picture for the day, so it cuts me a little slack in the photography department. Watch this space tomorrow for my first attempt at Friday Fictioneering!

Six-Word Saturday I like the idea of looking back–on the week, on a certain event, on a specific time in my life–and summing up my feelings about it using only six words. The challenge is to come up with a succinct yet catchy phrase that I can then expand upon as I see fit.

Sunday Best I don’t mean to imply that this will be my best piece of writing for the week, rather that on Sundays I will respond to the prompt I liked best during the week, most likely supplied by The Daily Post.

So there you have it, my road map for the rest of the year. I reserve the right to occasionally deviate from the schedule as events dictate–tomorrow, for example, is Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, so if I had not already promised you a Friday Fictioneers piece, I’d be penning an ode to creamy Jif. I hope this plan will help you find the kind of pieces you are looking to read (I promise to also clean up my categories/tags and use them more consistently) as much as it will help me focus my energy when my steaming mug of tea and I sit down in front of the computer each day.

In the spirit of trying to set up a regular routine for the content of my blog posts (as discussed on 21 February), I’m trying out Thoughtful Tuesdays. While browsing online, I’ve come across a list of fairly deep, thought-provoking questions from a book by Gregory Stock, PhD. According to the introduction, the questions will force the reader interpret his past, project himself into hypothetical situations, face difficult dilemmas, and make painful choices. I’m not sure I’m anxious to face difficult dilemmas or make painful choices, but at a glance, I can see how these questions could be a journey of personal growth, so I’m willing to take a chance.

For today’s entry, I randomly selected Question 65 (whew, it’s an easy one to start this new feature!):
When you tell a story, do you often exaggerate or embellish it? If so, why?

When I tell a story, I want people to be entertained, so yes, I do try to spice things up. I don’t exaggerate to the point where the twelve ounce bass I actually caught becomes a leaping, lunging twelve pound monster in the retelling, but any chance I get, I make the details more colorful without sacrificing the overall veracity of the tale. I remember telling a story as a child, no more than eight or nine years old, and I substituted the word historical for hysterical (or it could have been vice versa). I wanted to use big words to impress my audience, but ended up sending my mom and our neighbors into fits of giggles with my ill-chosen vocabulary. My already fragile young ego certainly did not appreciate being laughed at, but in time I found that if I stuck with words I knew and wove them together just so, I could get people to laugh WITH me. That was a heady feeling, almost as if I had a secret power. I lived to find some mundane event I could retell at Sunday breakfast so I could witness my parents laughing so hard that they would refuse to drink their coffee for fear it would come out their noses.

As a writer, I strive even harder to put just the right spin on my words. I want my readers to be engaged in my story, whether it is fact or fiction. I hope that, depending on the subject and their own experiences, the reader walks away laughing, crying, thinking, or remembering.