Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Blog hop

I was honored to be asked to be part of a Blog Hop by the lovely Corbin Lewars, which, although I don't know exactly what a blog hop is, I think you probably should probably take your shoes off.  (Oh, I hope that doesn't sound creepy!)

At any rate, Corbin is my writing teacher and a lovely human who blogs here, and generously included me in this mini-blog tour.  The deal is that I write about my writing life, and introduce three blogs that I enjoy.

My writing life.  Yikes.  This has caused me to pause for a while I procrastinate consider.  I'm not sure I have a "writing life", exactly.  But the questions I'm to respond to are:  What are you working on, how does your work differ from others in the genre, why do you write what you write, and what does your writing process look like? Um, hmm.

What I'm working on:  I'm mostly working on trying to be a decent person.  The sort of friend who not only helps a friend move, but helps a friend move bodies if needed.  I'm not planning to be an accomplice to murder, but I do endeavor to be the sort of person one can count on to listen and not judge, be good for my word, and be generous with time, money, and affection.  So that's the main project and it takes all of my time.

Writing wise, I like to say I'm working on a memoir, but the fact of it is that I haven't picked it up in months.  One shitty first draft, mostly written in a flurry in 2012, and there it sits.  But I do plan to get back to it "soon".  Because the most lovely A. is reviewing, editing, and making suggestions -- a gift that I'm extremely grateful for.  When there's another person in the world who is willing to commit time and talent to your project, well, that's rare and good.  I hope to appreciate her efforts by working hard on it when she's finished.

My writing process?  Does anyone particularly care?  I bet it's just like yours.  I try to write -- in fact, I feel like I must write or soul death will happen.  I get up early, full of hope.  I sit down at the computer, stare at the screen for a while, and then wander off without necessarily deciding to, put in a load of laundry, which should take 3 minutes but it takes 45 because I stop at the various things I find between the kitchen and laundry room:  newspapers, art supplies, projects, books.  By now it's time for another cup of coffee, but when that's done, I'm totally going to get down to business.  For sure.  And on and on it goes, checking e-mail and FB, doing minor chores, making snacks and meals and coffee.

But every so often it goes really well, usually because at some point during the day, something causes me to laugh or cry, and if I can take that bit of  lump in my throat or feeling of hilarity and convert it to words, well, that's a good day.

And let me introduce my three blogs, only at the moment, it will only be one.  I'm spacing it out.  Ahem.  You know who you are, and what to do.  :-)

This is the blog of my dear little Emma, whom I've known and admired for many years because she's strong, lovely, thoughtful, hilarious, and a great writer.  Check out her blog, and come back again and again, because she's in the middle of some hard things right now and the post isn't recent.

More about Ms. Emma:
Emma is a writer/crafter/collector/cook living in Duvall, Washington. She likes music, making art, listening to NPR, plants of all kinds, Volkswagens, and especially the time of day just before the sun goes down. She thinks there’s nothing better than a well told story and a really good orange, and likes to drink too much coffee. Her favorite color is cerulean blue.

4 comments:

  1. I want to learn how to cross out words within the paragraph. I think you are so cool and I am not. Maybe you can teach me the cross out thing at the writing workshop.

    I did send in my bio. I did.

    XX your friend in jesus

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh wow I was about to leave a comment and some crazy ad-thing popped up and now I've lost my train of thought, which I'm sure must have been very insightful. Well. Thanks for this post; it was fun to get inside your head a little bit. Always looking for good blogs to check out, so now on to Emma.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I AM interested in your writing process, because I don't write (except comments, which is different altogether) but I keep thinking I would like to. But it's not the soul death kind of feeling, so I'm thinking maybe some of us were made to read instead of write ... ANYway, glad to hear you are still considering your memoir, and have a writing mentor, and I'm looking forward to more blog recommendations.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope you keep writing that memoir. Not shitty at all, that draft. Quite good and full of promise. I'm so glad you write. Sometimes I'm jealous of your creativity and honesty, but mostly I'm just glad I stumbled or hopped your way. :)

    ReplyDelete

I'm excited to report that the author Celeste Ng has selected m y modern love essay to read for the Modern Love podcast next week. Suc...