I made a resolution at the beginning of January that this year I would start trying to publish my stories.  It wasn’t an over-the-top goal of published novels, but rather a commitment to take the writing process seriously and learn how to take the daily steps to polish my work.  After I had a few polished stories, then I would focus on how to get my work published.  On the day I saw the ad, it was already March and I had not yet taken any steps towards my goal.  

     This was a sign!  I really didn’t believe in signs, but I WANTED there to be a reason bigger than myself for me to return to my writing life.  I promptly printed out the information and promised to call the contact number the next day.  Two weeks later, I found the printout of information on my desk, folded neatly, being used as a coaster under my Pepsi can.  I started to toss it, but instead timidly opened it and read the announcement once again.  Not allowing myself anytime to find an excuse for not following through, I picked up the phone right then and called the number.

     A friendly voice greeted me on the other end and seemed genuinely excited to hear that I was interested in attending the writers group.  The fact that I was not an experienced writer with credentials to my name did not seem to render me less welcomed.  She assured me there were participants in both catagories, as well as some in between.  I didn’t really know what that meant, but felt sure that I met the definition of one of them.

     Our conversation lasted for near thirty minutes as she explained how the group came to be formed, where they met and what happened regularly at each meeting.  I learned that each member was encouraged to e-mail a writing sample to each other member the week before we met.  Each member could then read and critique writing samples and bring them to the meeting.  At the meetings, each person who chose to read their sample was allowed to do so, and comments were given afterwards.  Those who had critiqued the piece ahead of time could give their copy to the writer for their future consideration.  

     I may not have been quick to make the call for information, but after talking with the group leader, I was really excited to attend the next meeting.  That was about 7 months ago and becoming a part of this group has changed my writing life completely.

     The group had only 5 members attending when I first started going, but that number has gradually grown since then.  Each person’s writing is totally unique and it has offered me the opportunity to understand a writer’s voice, by studying the different styles of each participant.  There are representatives for many genres and I find myself feeling new pulls towards experimenting with genres which are new to me.  Some are published authors, some are not.  Resources, contacts, and events are shared each meeting.  Each step forward that a member takes is celebrated with sincere joy and encouragement from all.  I have learned what special gifts each one has to share and now know who to go to for questions on commas, or questions on writer’s conferences, or questions on the magic powers of a cat, verses those of a tree.

     I am writing daily now.  The group has taught me that no excuse is valid enough to keep a writer away from their writing for long.  Members who have been published are great role models of what can happen, and those who have just begun to write are wonderful reminders of my early writing days when it was all done for the pure joy of telling a story.  My writing is no longer a struggle, and having copy ready to share with the group on a regular basis is a wonderful accountability tool.

     My positive experiences with the writer’s group have motivated me to seek out even more writers to interact with regularly.  Twitter has proven to be an excellant tool for locating writers on-line at any time of day or night.  I now converse with folks in New Zealand, Japan, and London, not to mention the talented people I have connected with in the U.S.  Here, I have also met agents and publishers and have begun to build a better understanding of what their expectations are for an author, and how to find the right avenue for publishing my work.

     Writing is not normally considered a group activity.  In fact, it is almost always done in isolation.  This is how I have always written.  I haven’t  given a great deal of thought to what other writers were doing.  I just assume they are over “there” doing their own writing thing, in isolation.  That was a mistake on my part.  The relationships I have generated this year from my interactions with writers, can be directly linked to the increased success I have found in meeting my daily writing goals.  So far this year has brought me incredible new insights and opportunities to become a better writer, and my new number one recommendation to others looking for the same is…hang out with writers!

I began to create Emerging Writer!  Now I can just share lists of the actions I take to make it a reality!  These all happened in week 1!

****Researched many links from the writers I follow on Twitter.  Here I learned about free locations to set up my blog.  I almost chose Blogger, but after following many links, decided WordPress was a better option for me.  It seemed to offer more room for growth over time.  I also found that some of the people who used it were folks I followed all the time.  I guess you would call that a *silent recommendation.

…..Chose the name “Emerging Writer”.  I played with MANY choices but continually came back to this one.  It fit my goals for the blog on so many levels.  I am happy with the name for now.  I did have some misgivings right after launching the blog to the public and will write about that later.  Even so, Emerging Writer set the tone I was seeking and for me evokes images of the spiritual aspects of writing.

…..Registered with WordPress to set up a blog.  This process was very easy.  Then I began the layout and formatting.  I had NO…I REPEAT…NO  EXPERIENCE doing this!  WordPress is very user friendly. 

     My only disappointment at this stage was the limited number of theme options available.  I feel certain there are probably other sites you can go to and find theme options for wp, but I didn’t go that route at this time.  Maybe later, after I’ve had some time to gain more experience.  For now, I was satisfied to pick a theme that gave me the option to change their default picture for one of my own.  My pix choice for the heading is one taken by a friend on a path that runs the back of our property, along a creek.  My sister, who shares most all of my journeys, and some friends were out exploring one warm winter’s day, a few years back.  It evoked the image I had of writers traveling together through all the seasons of our writing processes…maybe otherwise known as…we are off to see the wizard!

…..Added the WIDGETS!  This was a first for me, but also easy to do…just click and drag.  Before the day I added them, I didn’t even know what the word meant!  But, now that I think about it, the word is most appropriate for my new adventure to Oz…maybe they were the little guys hiding behind the trees back there!

       Widgets I chose for now:  Calender, Twitter feed, Categories, Tags, Statistics, Text box, Blog Contents.

6 DAYS AGO…

     Began to mention the new blog to others, on-line and off.  Began writing my first blog.

5 DAYS AGO…

     Focused exclusively on editing EVERYTHING.  I want the blog to look like something they want to follow and come back to often.

4DAYS AGO…

     Found a link to a helpful blog for people just starting to blog.  www.beginnerblogger.com    Here I find real assurance that I will have assistance for technical questions as they come up.  It is ran by Sarge and I look forward to future interactions here.

     Continued to tell folks the blog was coming!

3 DAYS AGO…

     Add RSS Feeds   I am still learning about this application and all that it can offer.  I don’t feel like  I really know yet.  I will share more as I figure it out.

     Downloaded TwitterDeck    This is used to organize your Twitter experience and make it better.  So far, I haven’t experienced all the perks of it yet.  It seems a little difficult for me to figure out.  I will keep trying though and let you know how it goes.

     Set up a new homepage with Google.   This is so I can keep all the rss feeds handy to read and allow easy interface.  ??? So far I haven’t been able to get my rss feeds to show up on the page, but I do think the page is cool and Google offers lots of little widgets to perk up your experience each time you sign on.

2 DAYS AGO…

Continued to mention the new blog to friends.  Many voice their interest!  Focused on final edits this day.

Found out people use FaceBook for blogging fan clubs.  Interesting.  Will explore.

Learned about Google Analytics.  This is a very interesting application that I know I will be interested in later.  For now, I need to focus on uploading content.  I’m not worried about number of followers until I have a full buffet of content to offer them when they arrive.  Besides…if I wait long enough, maybe www.beginnerblogger.com will offer us a tutorial on it and make it so much easier for us unskilled newbies to participate!

Began to explore advertising opportunities.  I know people out there make money with their blogs, but I have no clue how.  It isn’t my #1 goal right now, so I’ll just continue to research this area.  I do not want the site to look totally commercial or trashy, so I will be very picky about this topic.

1 DAY AGO…

Officially launched http://emergingwriter.wordpress.com/   !!!!!!!

53 hits the first day!  How did that happen?!

Its been a marathon of a month!  I am REALLY TIRED!!  Going to take a few days off, I think.  Then I will return and jump back in to run my new blog baby! 

LOOK OUT OZ….MARGIE IS ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD!

     One thing I do know is that when life changes, it can change fast. One day I am using my computer for e-mails and research and playing Free Cell or Mahjong.  The next day I find myself frustrated while cleaning house, of all things, and end up on a new quest to become a professional blogger!  How those two things collided really will make sense when you hear how it happened.  It can be compared to Dorothy waking up in Oz where all things are foreign.  She has a new journey ahead of her, with new friends to meet, and a picnic basket full of new lessons to learn.  Where did my journey begin?  Well, it went something like this…

One Month Ago…August 2009…

     The tornado which blew through my bedroom was rated a category 4, or at least I told folks that when I was forced to let them see the stacks of messy “stuff” that cluttered my master bedroom.  This shameful nemesis was quite the source of embarrassment for me.  There were books, papers, pictures, and boxes, all holding treasures to which I needed access, or needed to file away, or didn’t want too far away from me for any number of personal reasons.  I have Multiple Sclerosis and there have been many bad days where I could not get out of bed, so my “stuff” brought a certain level of security to me that I hadn’t found a way to do without.  Still, the time had come to make changes.  The mess was becoming an excuse for me to continue too many unhealthy procrastination behaviors.

     I made myself a new promise.  I pledged to myself that the master bedroom would be sorted, organized, and styled comfortably before the summer ended.   This is why I found myself up-side-down in the bottom of my closet on that hot Texas day.  Before I could properly reorganize and store everything, I first needed to pull out everything and see exactly what I had.  A pink 17-gallon plastic crate would be found that day, and life hasn’t been the same since.  Exploring inside the crate I found half-finished manuscripts, outlines and research for articles and books I began to write but never completed.  In addition, there were completed works that I self-published years back for use in training workshops I facilitated. 

     Opening the pink lid seemed to release many ghosts from dreams in my past.  I spent an entire afternoon sitting on the floor of the closet pining over my words that had been forgotten years ago.  At one point realizing that tears were streaming down my face, and sweat was running down my aching back, I pulled the half-full crate out into the bedroom.

     Here was one way to start the organization out in the main bedroom!  Quickly I began to gather the stacks of crinkled papers from every corner.  I had bits and pieces of writing projects scattered everywhere in all shapes and conditions and levels of completion.  Just getting all of these into one location would free up space and disperse some of the piles.  So, off  I go like another tornado hitting Kansas…I mean Texas.  I shoved them all into the pink crate and slapped the lid back on.  WOW!  That felt good!   For the first time in a long time, I felt like there was hope for clearing up the debris in the bedroom.  I smiled at the thought that I wasn’t allowing sentimental memories of yesterday’s dreams, to interfere with organizational progress today!

     I’ll skip all the stuff about trying to clean the rest of the room.  It is boring and doesn’t have anything to do with my blog.  Let’s just say it remains a work in progress, with emerging hope for meeting my end of summer deadline.

     The focus needs to stay with the pink crate.  It really continued to haunt my thoughts.  I also had a dresser drawer full of children’s stories, all in some level of completion, but not polished.  I seemed to be drawn to the stack of journals I had from a lifetime of releasing myself on the page.  I had decided in January that this was the year I would begin to do something about getting my stories out into the world, and I had begun, but still was moving at a snails pace.  And my organization of all this mess was making it hard to find things on a daily basis.  I was discouraged and needed to find others who were like me in this struggle.  I needed solutions and wanted to talk to other writers to see  how they dealt with these issues.

     So, one night I decided to hang out on Twitter and see if I could find people to chat with on my writing struggles.  I had joined Twitter several months before ,on a whim, just to see how it worked, and I hadn’t been back since.  This night I started to put in search words, like writer, author, publishing, etc.., and to my surprise, there were names popping up.  I started to follow them and was very impressed at the quality of the interactions.  I guess I had expected it all to be stupid stuff like teens or something.  Instead, these were intelligent, professional people from all over the world talking about their daily trials and successes with writing. 

     I became hooked in a very short time.  I also felt connected again to the outside world and came to see this as an avenue for me to LIVE outside my house without having the physical struggles of going outside the house.  There was a parrallel universe taking place that was active 24/7 and I didn’t know anything about it!

     I began to research the websites and blogs of my favorite followers.  These led to more and more links to find and follow, and proved to be, not only great writing resources, but also great mentors and contacts.  Suddenly I felt more motivation to write than I had in many years. 

     The pink box was pulled back out and I began to sort the materials into a labeled filing system.  I added new folders for the new stacks of paper I was copying off of the computer now daily.  My research from the Twitter links  gave me new file names, like author interviews, writer’s communities, publishing tips, and “new topics I want to write about”.  More stacks of paper?  Wait!  Wasn’t the goal to rid myself of all these stacks?  Okay…I am not perfect…just keep up with me….   During the time I was storing a massive amount of internet searches and really learning what it means to browse, I began to understand how blogs were formatted and the versatility of how people used them.

     This all happened in a matter of three days, but by this time I was hooked on communicating with people on Twitter.  It was exciting to know I could find so many interesting people interested in writing participating here.  But, the biggest surprise was that suddenly the number of people following ME was going up!  How fun to know people wanted to know what I had to say!  I became aware that there was a hierarchy of sorts…top pros in their fields, down to beginners like myself.  All seemed welcomed.  The second week I participated, I was named in someones #FF listing and suddenly I felt like I was a member of the BIG WORLD again.  The fact that he was a writer living in Japan only made it that much more exciting.  I was now part of the global community!

     Throughout the days of working on my de-cluttering quest and exploring  my new obsession with Twitter and blogging, I continued to plug away on my *WIPs (works in progress), a children’s chapter book, and two other short stories.  I felt a fresh wind of motivation blowing and the words came easier than usual.  Physically, I felt well enough to begin attending the Eagle Mountain Writer’s Workshop again.  Here, I found great people to share resources, listen to reads, and critique each others work.  I suddenly had information and resources myself to share when someone brought up a need.

     The large amounts of data were still stored in ways that didn’t prove efficient for use, not by myself, or for sharing with others.  My favorites lists of links were categorized, but still not easily accessible.  As I spoke to people off line, as well as on, I often found myself needing to quickly  locate some piece of information and not being able to do so.  I had the fortune of great sources falling into my lap, but no functional way to access them.

     I also found myself back in the role of mentor for a new writer.  Encouragement and guidance can go so far to help another writer stay on the track to completing their work.  I began to remember the kids I mentored as a teacher and the strategies that brought the most encouragement.  Awareness grew in me that there were many people like me out there trying to deal with their own writing journey.  Maybe it would help them to hear the ups and downs of my experiences.  I knew it would help me to tell the stories…

2 WEEKS AGO….AUGUST 2009

     A dream brought all these events to a climax.  Dreams often bring answers to me on many different topics, so it didn’t surprise me that the idea to start my own blog became conscious to me in a dream.

     What if I created a blog about my writing journey?  A place for me to chronicle my efforts to become a published writer.  This could be a place for me to organize all the material, ideas, and resources in one place where I can access them easily from ANY computer.  Then, another thought dawned on me!  It could be an organized place for me to send others to find information that might help them, or a place to find encouragement, or a place just to talk with another struggling writer.  At first, I felt like a genius for thinking of this idea!  LOL!  But, as I researched the idea I realized there were MANY similar sites out there.  Was there room for one more?

     I made up my mind that YES there was room for one more!  After all, I wasn’t trying to to reinvent the wheel, I was trying to organize my writing life and the networking I desired to do to motivate young, new, or shy writers.  This is how it all began.  This is when my blogging education officially took precedence on my daily list of priorities!

     You can often recognize writers by the stacks of papers they carry around with them everywhere.  Their environments are noticably cluttered with little pieces of  paper, some fresh and crisp, some folded and dirty, some torn off of corners of other papers, some scribbled on and paper-clipped to other pieces of papers.  These are the fragments of beginnings…impressions for middles…and resolutions for endings…all yet to be completed. 

     You have most likely seen others, like myself, who belong to the club called writers.  We are the ones writing on napkins while waiting for food in a restaurant.  We are the ones with stacks of mismatched papers shoved into the back of our sock drawer.  Maybe it is our first draft of a great novel, or maybe it is a collection of poetry that paints a portrait of our soul. 

     Writers can be found wherever there is a closet with a stack of journals from floor to ceiling…yes, I have that stack.  I have journals for different ages of my life, different stages of my life, and different voices that I have heard in my life.  If you are a writer, I know you know…

      Boredom does not have a membership card to the writer’s club.  People who call themselves writers are never bored, because the next person who sits by him at the doctors office, or offers to share a cab, may be presenting him with the raw material for his next main character.  The crack on a wall may be the inspiration for his next opening scene, and the iritating child in the grocery store line may use just the right juvenile jargon to help him complete a difficult dialog.  Time is never wasted when observations are your raw materials for work.

     There is a subgroup of writers in the club, such as myself, who allow life to interfer with our writing processes. We do all of the things that other writers do except one…we do not submit our work for publication.  We spend a great deal of time treating our writing as a hobby, or as therapy to escape the turmoil of life. We go out into the world and create other elaborate careers, but, we always come back to writing the stories that live in our hearts.  We must, even if we do not know why.  Our  stacks of unfinished stories and articles will accumulate over many years without seeing completion.  This is the kind of writer I have been for over 30 years.    I represent a catagory of writers known to be shy, or less confident, than your favorites who have shared their published stories with you.  We read MANY books…  well… we read EVERYTHING.  We study other successful writers and marvel at the great ones, as we critique and disect the not so good ones.  We turn green with regret that we could not do what they did.  Or, could we?  What is it that they did exactly to make it to a bookstore shelf?  I’m sure I know many of the things.  The list would look something like this…

     Successful writers must not question their abilities, or ignore their calling to put their ideas on paper.  Successful writers must not fear the rejection of hearing, “No, thank you.” when submitting their work.  Successful writers must keep on putting themselves out “there” to be seen and judged.  I can see these brave, armored writers in my mind’s eye as they march straight up to the Publishing Gods and declare…

     “Here I am!  Here is my work!  Find it a home and facilitate my efforts to earn a living!  Publish my words for all to read!”

     I am not this kind of writer, but, this is the year I have chosen to become that kind of writer.  I am gathering all of my torn bits of paper and stacking them in one pile.  My goal is to create completed written works.  One at a time, I will give my focused attention to the task of  telling the stories that live in my soul.

     This will also be my journey towards finding the paths of the Publishing Gods, and entering these paths which hold the keys to changing my destiny.  I am ready to learn whatever it is that I need to know so that I can approach them and claim my chance to be heard.  Research does not scare me.  I am up for the challenge.  I will find my way into that world I know holds a place for me.  Fear will no longer be my downfall.  My fear will only fuel my efforts now.  I am ready to lower the fortress walls, raise my fearless head into the firing-line, and hold my hand up high into the air, waving my manuscripts bravely…and seek to be heard.

     To track my submission efforts, I have created a magical 3-ring binder to organize and keep each rejection letter I receive from an agent or publisher.  My goal is to not allow myself to even consider ending my submission efforts until the binder is 3 inches thick with rejection letters.  If by the time I reach the 3 inch mark, I have not established myself as a writer capable of having work published…then I will know it is time to face a new reality…the reality that I REALLY SUCK at knowing how to find the RIGHT publisher.  Notice I did not say that it would prove I was a bad writer!  I have an entirely different theory about being a bad writer (tune in for future blogs about the worthiness of a bad writer). 

     Yes, I am a writer.  I know it because I cannot stop writing.  I will stop for now, though.  If you want to follow me on this journey of discovery, come back often and see how I am doing.  I know there are others out there like myself.  We might as well come out from behind our uncertainty and forge our paths together.  I will blog about my adventures and share my experiences.  It is time we admit we are here, and it is time we allow our words to stand on their own.

This is my blog.

Everyone is welcome here.

Explore my pages if you want.

Leave messages if you wish.

I will update material every week at least once.

Fridays are always the deadline.

Come back often.

Find out more about what I will focus on by reading my “about”.

Find out more about who I am by reading my posts.

I talk about myself a lot.

You will know you have “arrived” when you read my posts and find out I am talking about you, too.

It can happen.

Just ask Chester.