Hello you. Yesterday was supposedly Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year. I don’t know if I was sad, but I sure have been lazy. I cannot get it together to be productive. How about you?
The biggest effort I have put forth this year (besides a few submissions) was to participate in a challenge on Facebook to post nature photographs for seven days and to nominate others to do so too (like a chain letter). Posting my photos gave me something to do and I have really dug seeing others photographs from all over the world. Okay, so that’s one cool thing about FB but we all know there are drawbacks too. For instance does your social media time take away from your writing time?
How can a writer master Facebook? That’s the topic writer Karen Craigo tackles in her latest post (“Is Facebook stealing your thunder?”) on her blog, Better View of the Moon.
Her husband is the writer Michael Czyzniejewski and this year he has challenged himself to post about a short story every day on on his blog, Story 366. For instance, today he writes about “The Cemetery of Lost Faces” by Amber Sparks.
Yesterday this blog post was helpful to me. It’s by writer Jennifer Garam and titled “How To Keep Writing When No One Gives A Shit.”
Writer Ellen T. McKnight also has a useful post about writing and New Year’s resolutions. It’s called “Foibles and Fixes.”
You might also find interesting “Seamus Heaney’s Advice to the Young,” which appears on BrainPickings, another great resource.
Through FB, I connected with Margarita Engle whose untitled tanka appears in Solace in So Many Words. I’m glad to see she has new book. It is described this way: “Margarita grew up in Los Angeles, but developed a deep attachment to her mother’s homeland during summers with her extended family in Cuba. ENCHANTED AIR, Two Cultures, Two Wings is a verse memoir about those childhood visits.”
Also, friend to SISMW Ben Tanzer has a new book. It’s called Sex and Death and is just out from Sunnyoutside Press. Here’s a review from Small Press Book Review.
Also you may want to check out This Blog Will Change Your Life, which is Ben’s blog.
That’s it for me today. Toodles!
Peace, love, and solace