Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7b

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7b

Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings.

TODAY’S QUESTION:

Are you participating in this year’s A to Z Challenge? If not, have you participated in the past?

What do you enjoy about this Challenge in particular, and what do you think about blogging challenges in general?

MY ANSWER:

I am participating in the A-Z Challenge for 2023. I have participated in the past.

This year, I am BEHIND. The A-Z is usually held during the month of April. For me. This year, I am going to have to complete it during the month of May.

I guess I’m OK with this. I’ll have to be OK or else just not finish it. I sorta like the theme (Yes, I know sorta is not a word) that I have for the A-Z this year. I think that it is a theme I can use in my writing presentations- the Gettin’ to Know Ya section, so I want to complete the theme.

I enjoy writing challenges. They give me a starting point from which to dive.

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7b.

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7.

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7

Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings.

TODAY’S QUESTION (Today it’s a Quote):

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~ Anaïs Nin

MY ANSWER:

There are so many wonderfully-perfect quotes about writing that I love to read, but that I do not have any personally-applicable feelings toward. I wish I did.

Right now, I am still wrestling with the process of writing every day.

I want to write every day. At least I think I want to write every day.

I enjoy writing. At least I think I enjoy writing.

Well… you can easily see the problem.

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0 – #7.

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #6

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #6

Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUESTIONS:

Do you have any regrets regarding your blog and blogging?

MY ANSWERS:

When I started blogging it was a very scatter-shot experience. I learned as I went along the path of blogging.

That has made the organizational aspects of my blog rather disjointed- I think-. I wish there was an easy way to fix it?

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0 – #6.

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #5b

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #5b

Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUESTIONS:

How important is your Gravatar to your blogging personna?

MY ANSWERS:

My Gravatar is a wooded area and a bridge. I suspect when I picked it I saw it as a pictorial metaphor for how I see me relating to the world. (Wow that’s deep….)

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0 – #5b.

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #3

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0 – #3

Another new entry into my wheelhouse for this New Year is Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUESTION

How do writing prompts affect your creativity? Do they expand it, or do they restrict it?

Can they be considered ‘real’ or ‘true’ writing?

What is your favorite kind of prompt?

MY THOUGHTS

What a great writing prompt to toot my own horn.

I like picture prompts. They are freeing … for me. From one single picture 20 people will come up with 20 completely different ideas, but they all have one common thread as a theme.

Picture prompts are awesome!

If you would like to try a picture prompt, I sponsor a weekly challenge here … FLASH FICTION FOR THE PRACTICAL PRACTITIONER

This Week’s Challenge

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0 – #3.

Blogging Insights 3.0-2

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0-2

Another new entry into my wheelhouse for this New Year is Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUESTION

Do you write directly on a device? Are you old school, do you write on paper first? Do you re-draft? If so, how many times?

MY THOUGHTS

I write on a device. I enjoy the ability to spellcheck as I go and without a lot of brainwork.

I think on paper. It is very difficult for me to brainstorm and/or outline a new topic on the computer.

Pen and paper is a must.

Do I redraft?

This one is a giggler! In order to redraft, a writer would have to finish the first draft…. ‘nough said.

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0-2

Blogging Insights 3.0-1

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights 3.0-1

Another new entry into my wheelhouse for this New Year is Blogging Insights hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUESTION

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”      VS           “Break the mold.”

Which of these do you believe, as pertaining to your blogging?

MY THOUGHTS

When it comes to my blog … “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Upon retirement, I collected tons of things that I knew that I just could not part with. I was sure I would use them someday.

Now, after four years, I have been decluttering. Another nice word … downsizing. The truth … throwing out the useless trash.

Once I get the decluttering and remodeling done, and I find time for a blog-a-day (something I wish I could keep up with) and find time for my two novels that I have begun, THEN I am sure I will want to think about tweaking my blog.

Written for Blogging Insights 3.0-1

Blogging Insights NF — #65 New Year, New Slate

Posted on by rogershipp

Blogging Insights NF # 65 — New Year, New Slate

Blogging Insights NF is hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUOTE

” Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book. Write a good one!” — Brad Paisley.

MY THOUGHTS

I am trying to start – for the umpteenth time – a young adult novel that has been in the back of my mind for more than 15 years.

It’s not that I have procrastinated that long.

I had been a middle school teacher (both regular sessions and summer sessions and extracurricular sessions) for 37 years. Now I have retired. Now I have the time.

The problem.

In my classes, I taught the kids to write what is now called flash fiction. Stories and memories that you could complete the entire story in 300 words… 500 words… 1000 words.

A NOVEL is more words that that. I am not at all sure how to write a NOVEL – 50,000+ words – using these same writing giftings.

I have whined and complained for years. (Yes, I admit it.) And finally one of the leaders in a writing group I participate in called me on it.

She had a solution.

She had read a How-to book (and had found it personally useful) that addressed this issue. It had lessons that are supposed to guide you through the entire process.

That’s what I am doing now.

MY NOVEL -It’s still a blank page… There are several lessons to work through before you get to the start of your book.

I’ve read the text through completely for a first time.

This time through, I am doing the exercises one lesson at a time.

We’ll see.

Written for Blogging Insights NF — #65 New Year, New Slate.

Blogging Insights NF # 65 — Holidays for writers/bloggers?

Posted on by rogershipp

https://quotesgram.com/holiday-quotes-by-famous-writers/

Blogging Insights NF # 65 — Holidays for writers/bloggers?

Another new entry into my wheelhouse for this New Year is Blogging Insights NF hosted by Salted Caramel. Salted Caramel offers a quote-of-a-sort to respond to each week. If you enjoy wise sayings from others, check out her offerings. 

TODAY’S QUOTE

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer life consists of either writing or thinking about writing. “

MY THOUGHTS

For me, this quote is a truth.

I think sometimes that is why I find ‘writing’ so exhausting. I have never stopped writing … so when I look back at what I have completed, it is so little.

I am a very goal-driven … Check-it-off the list … kind of person. With writing, sometimes there is NOTHING to check off.

As a teacher, writing was one of my favorite subjects to teach. I loved it. But each day had an objective to look at … to assess … to complete … and then to let go of. Perfect never happened.

We had three evaluation criteria –

This should go in the TRASH folder.

I think I might want to LOOK AT LATER folder.

I want to KEEP AND IMPROVE folder.

Every three weeks we would take something to the I WANT TO PUBLISH THIS folder. (Usually the students had more work go to the PUBLISH folder than every three weeks, but that was all that was required)

I can’t seem to allow myself the freedoms that I granted my students.

EVERYTHING that I write needs to look like it is ready to PUBLISH. This makes it very frustrating for me.

That’s one of the things I am working on this year for me.

Written for Blogging Insights NF # 65 — Holidays for writers/bloggers?