I’ve gone and done it, taking another bold leap toward publication, by signing up for Writer Mama Christina Katz’ online class:
Finally, a writing workshop that fits into the busy lives of moms! This class focuses on getting you into print sooner, rather than later, and without pulling all-nighters or paying a fortune in babysitter fees. You will learn how to create short, easy-to-write articles—a skill that will make it easier to work your way up to longer, more time-consuming articles (like features and profiles) when you’re ready. You will try your pen at tips, fillers, short interviews, list articles, how-tos, and the short personal essays—all within six weeks. And you will learn to submit your work with a basic cover letter. Opportunities for self-assessment and self-reflection are woven into the class, and you’ll benefit from reading your classmates’ submissions.
By starting short, you will learn to identify multiple possibilities for your material that will strengthen your freelancer’s eye in the long run. You will receive two detailed reviews of your drafts-in-progress at weeks three and six (you choose one of your pieces for an instructor critique each time). The instructor offers personal attention throughout the class in the form of questions answered for the entire class, just like a traditional “live” class. Because of the high volume of student productivity in this class, the instructor does not critique each and every student submission, but she does share all of your work with the entire class.(Busy dads are also welcome to sign up, but they should expect a course designed to address and overcome the challenges busy moms face. Stay-at-home dads are sure to feel right at home!)
This week’s assignment is to write tips. What are tips, you ask? Well, “a tip is a solution to a problem addressed to an audience that will appreciate it.” Right about now, I could use a few tips on how to write engaging tips!
Anyway, if you’re wondering what I’m up to this week, I’ll be looking for problems.
Last month, flush with the excitement that a new year brings, I vowed to diversify my writing as the next step in my plan to get published in 2010. Idiot!
What was I thinking? Of course, one month later, I’m in full overload trying to write daily for a new blog, not too infrequently for this blog, and failing to write short stories for bi-weekly submission to a fiction group. Fail!
Meanwhile, I still have to fulfill all kinds of responsibilities in the rest of my world. Not happening!
You’d think that I would learn from previous mistakes.
Every year, in February, I go through a winter slump where all the new year enthusiasm disappears, and all I want to do is escape from thinking. This is when I usually end up in a mindless marathon of trashy romance novels or all-engrossing TV on DVD. One year, I watched all the permutations of Stargate. Last year, I managed to view the entire Buffy/Angel saga. I even rationalized that I was learning from these TV retreats, but the real value was that it gave me a chance to still the endless To Do List in my head, and to emerge refreshed and ready to recommit to my endeavors.
I didn’t get as much of a brain-dead junket this year, but after a weekend of romance novels, and a week of recuperation from a pestilence dubbed the vomit comet, I’m ready to get back to business.
First, I’m scrapping some of the diversification plans. I’m really enjoying writing for Albany Kid, and I don’t want to give up my plans for On Living By Learning. However, I can’t do the fiction writing as well. I’m tabling that until next year.
Second, I’m limiting my time on social media. While it’s beneficial to my writing career to maintain an online presence, I rather have more time for writing. Right now, it doesn’t feel like I’m communicating on Twitter, as much as I’m just wielding a megaphone. But, with other a thousand Twitter friends, I haven’t succeeded in stifling the sheer noise factor. I’m not abandoning Twitter, but I’m going to have to think about how to use my time wisely in that forum.
I’m also staying on Facebook, but I’ve already scaled back how much time I spend there. It’s great for keeping up with my scattered real world friends and family, but I have to avoid it during writing time or it becomes a time suck that enables my natural tendency to procrastinate.
On the other hand, the Facebook pages that I’ve created for my blogs are worth some effort as I envision these as being where I can share material that I don’t yet have time to develop into articles. Ideally, these will become communities but we’ll see if that’s possible. Optimistic or unrealistic? We’ll see.
Finally, the biggest change I’m making right now is to put a time limit on blog posts. Some days, I spend inordinate gobs of time perfecting an article. I don’t know why, or how, but I just lose all sense of time. I don’t think the posts benefit from the time investment, and they may suffer from it. So, for now, I’m looking at the clock, and letting these babies go.
Ciao!
