Happy Birthday and all that suchness

I let March completely pass me by. I blogged for the South Carolina Writers Workshop here and I blogged over at GenX stories here.

But, alas, Clemson Road, I did not post anything new in March.

It was my birthday month which I've written about before. My birthday is the day after Lady Gaga's which makes me think maybe she and I have some things in common.

I renewed my Hobbes tattoo this month. It's been a task I planned multiple times over the last 19 years but never actually completed. Then I wrote a short story about the experience with this awesome line in it:

He’s reflecting my lost-self back at me and I like what I see. I let her re-emerge and stand before him renewed.

I'll be submitting the story in May which means it can't appear elsewhere. You'll just have to make do with the images of the work and my description of the artist (on whom I developed a little crush):

Fading ink stretches up his neck from his chest like a collar and down his arms like sleeves. He wears a newsboy cap and hipster glasses and smiles a crooked smile.

It's now April and it's another birthday month.

Three years ago, Wordsmith Studio was born out of the April Platform Challenge created by Robert Lee (My Name is Not Bob) Brewer of Writers' Digest. We banded together, we challengers, and formed Wordsmith Studio.

It's been my honor to serve on the Wordsmith Advisory Group or WAG for the last two years. It’s our job to plan fun things, make sure people behave, and organize all of our writerly suchness into actual writing work.

I have also kept pretty consistently faithful to our Tuesday evening chats for the better part of two years. If you get a chance to stop by Twitter with the hashtag #wschat on Tuesday evenings at 6 & 9 p.m. EST you’ll find some good friends talking writing-like stuff.

I’ve gotten to meet one WSS buddy in person and will see another, my friend Sarah, when I go to Seattle in July to run another half marathon.

This groups is amazing. They encourage and assist, that promote and congratulate, they share and they write. Which, ultimately, is what I came to them wanting to do.

My anniversary post is going to be a then-and-now post. I’m working on it today and will have it up soon.

Until then, take a look at Wordsmith Studio’s writing prompts, community page, and Facebook presence. You can see how meeting a group of like-minded and like-habited writers will keep you pushing ever forward toward your goal.

Cheers and Happy Birthday!

Celebrating Wordsmith Studio: Becoming a Real Writer

Before Wordsmith Studio, I wasn’t a Real Writer. I didn’t actually write. Not really. I played around some. Had a couple of novels in the deepest, most hidden files of my computer.

But in February 2012, I learned we were moving from the Upstate of South Carolina to Clemson Road. I would have to leave my real job behind.

I wanted to be a writer.

So I started this blog and I started looking around for advice, avenues, and allies. The path to real writerhood.

I found Writer’s Digest and Robert Lee “My Name is Not Bob” Brewer. In April 2012, he hosted a writers’ Platform Building Challenge on his blog. In the challenge, he had daily social media tasks. Things like read a blog and leave a comment. Open a Twitter account. Get a Facebook page.

Through comments of all the other participants, I learned there were dozens of people trying to do what I was trying to do: trying to tell other people that they were Writers.

Before Wordsmith Studio, I was a “Shhhhh…writer.”

Whispered as if unwilling to admit it.

Though my entire life I’ve felt called to storytelling, prose, composition and revision, I had yet to admit that passion to anyone.

Well, not since undergrad (1999) when it was made clear that being a writer was Just Too Hard and would never make me any money. I was encouraged to want money.

And not since my brief stint as a sportswriter (2000) when it was made clear that being a writer meant following around athletes who were Actually Accomplishing Something while I just took notes.

In 2012, I was in the middle of my dissertation research. I was writing the biggest, most important manuscript of my life. But I called myself Doctoral Researcher.

I was teaching English classes and I called myself English Professor.

I was freelancing, writing anything anyone would pay me for and I called myself an independent contractor.

I was blogging and I called myself a Job Seeker.

Then Wordsmith Studio. Born out of the platform challenge, Wordsmith Studio was the enterprising idea of early adopters who wanted to take our collaborative group and make something out of it. Give it a domicile of its own, a website, a Facebook group, a Facebook page, a Twitter account.

How I Got in the Game -- The April Platform Challenge Anniversary Post

I tweet every blog post “I #amwriting The Life on Clemson Road.”

In that statement alone, I’m expressing how far Robert Lee Brewer’s April Platform Challenge 2012 has brought me.

Let’s break it down: I tweet.

What? Not too long before April 2012 I thought Twitter was a self-indulgent busybody software of the highest order of narcissism and shallowness.

Now, I host Tweet chats for the Wordsmith Studio group every Tuesday, follow the Twitter feed for #thevoice and every major awards show, and participate in #litchat and #pitmad to discuss others’ books and pitch mine. 

It’s about the conversation.

I will write an entire post on Twitter etiquette, by the bye, since I have been in meetings with people who seemed to think the Twitter conversation was more important than the people in front of them. Ugh.

Okay, part two of the phrase: every blog post.

I blog? What?

Yep. Shhhh… you’re reading it now.