Tag: writing

B Is For… Blogging!

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If you\’re visiting from the A to Z Challenge, then chances are you know a lot about blogging. Today, I wanted to talk about one blog in particular: the Postcrossing blog. You can visit it, here. Their tagline is, \”Stories about the Postcrossing community and the postal world.\”

Postcrossing is an international community of penpal afficionados. It\’s an interesting concept: members send postcards to members around the world. The blog discusses news from within the community, and also postal mail in general. One recent article highlighted the Malta Postal Museum.

The thing I love about Postcrossing is that it\’s not a big investment. Writing a postcard is a tiny bit of text, and a small amount of postage. You can decide whether to mail members just in your country, or whether you\’re willing to write to folx in other countries.

Each month, they send you a list of your \”stats\” – to which countries you sent cards; from which countries you received cards; etc. I use it as a way to keep the pump primed, as Julia Cameron would say. In the process, I\’ve even made some friends along the way. Not every person in Postcrossing is interested in a more extended correspondence, but I\’ve met a few. It\’s the best of both worlds: a quick note to someone new, and a few longer, more crunchy letters.

What about you, Dear Reader? Have you tried Postcrossing?

April 3, 2023
Self-Care September – Writer Wednesday | Journal Tools – Future Visioning

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Future Visioning

I\’ve been keeping a journal for almost as long as I\’ve been alive. I started with one of those silly little ones they give small girls with a dopey lock that doesn\’t really lock and only about a paragraph\’s worth of space for each day. Such constraint! I\’ve tried all sorts of things in the intervening years, settling on my trusty Strathmore 400 Series 9 x 12\” spiral bound journals with the hardboard cover, because I can use it anywhere – on my lap on the bus or train, on the ferry, in a park, at the beach, in my office, on my balcony out back, in my car… (Dr. Seuss anyone?)

There are many, many different ways of keeping a journal, too – from the straight up \”Dear Diary\” type of chronicle, to bullet journals, listing, the unsent letter, and all sorts of methods in between. Today I want to talk about Future Visioning.

What Is Future Visioning?

Future Visioning is between creative writing, narrative non-fiction, and journaling. It\’s a way of spending time in our minds, fleshing out what we want to create and making it real to our creative brain. Like writing a book, we create the setting and characters and see how they interact. Like narrative non-fiction, it\’s telling a story about real or imagined real events. Like journaling, this is meant to be private: between ourselves and our imagination, and not for the eyes of anyone else.

How Do You Do It?

I recommend setting a timer for ten or twenty minutes. Grab your favorite journal notebook or a keyboard and fresh document. It\’s up to you whether you prefer to type or write by hand. I prefer (and recommend) writing by hand because there\’s something kinesthetic that happens when we do that, but use what works best for you. If you\’re not sure, they both and keep what method you like best.

Then, write down what you\’re wanting to create. Let\’s say our statement for today is, \”I am a prolific author.\” So I\’d start by writing that at the top of my page. Then I take a moment or two with my eyes closed and breathe deeply. I imagine what does me being a prolific author look like? I imagine it\’s this time next year, on a Wednesday afternoon, and I\’m on my balcony with the birds singing. When I have that image clear, I open my eyes and begin to write.

It\’s a Wednesday afternoon and the sun is out. It\’s not too hot outside and the breeze feels good. I\’m so pleased because I\’ve finished my blog posts for the day and I just hit \”send\” on my newsletter. Our next book is ready to be uploaded, since I just got it back from our book packager. This will be our sixth book in the series and our twentieth book overall. My body feels calm and grounded, and there are no butterflies in my stomach. Writing is so deeply satisfying, and I\’m so grateful that I finally allow myself to do it.

Let your timer be your guide, and just focus on getting the picture as clearly as you can in your mind, and write down what you see. Try to incorporate all five senses. What are you seeing? What does it feel like in your body to be in this new reality? What are you hearing around you, and from others in your orbit? What are you thinking as a result of your new reality? What in your life is easier?

We spend so much time complaining that it\’s easy to think that\’s the only thing we can do. But with a little creativity, we can use our journal as a potent tool for positive change.

Tomorrow, join me for our first September Challenge!

September 2, 2020
Self Care September – Theme Reveal
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I don\’t have to tell you that this year has been challenging. Between the pandemic, learning new terms for windstorms like \”derecho\” (which is a land hurricane, if you hadn\’t heard it before, and occurred in Iowa and left devastation in its wake), the fires in California, not one but two hurricanes in the Gulf, shootings and protests and rioting, it\’s a wonder that any of us can sleep at night.

Which brings me to my theme for this month: Focus on what I can control.

I can\’t fix the weather, and I\’m not a doctor so my job as regards COVID is to stay healthy and stay out of the emergency medical system to the extent that I can – which means, wear a mask, social distance, and avoid travel. I haven\’t really left the house since March other than to walk, go to the community garden, and essential shopping – and I\’m stir crazy!

Which got me thinking: I can\’t be the only creative, highly sensitive person out here with these challenges! I suspect there are a lot more of us than any of us realize, partly because when we\’re overwhelmed we don\’t communicate as loudly about our personal reality as we might during times when things aren\’t falling down around our ears.

And thus, the image at the top of this post. Did you know, there\’s such a thing as \”faux calligraphy?\” Here\’s how it works:
- Write out a phrase or statement, leaving extra space between the letters than you normally would.
- On the descenders of the letters, draw a second line next to the line of the letter and then color it in – I used the same color for my letters but you could get really fancy and color in the spaces with different colors, even using a colored pencil!
- When you cross the \”t\’s,\” be extra intentional and make a wavy line. You could even add flourishes if you felt called to.
- Voila. Calligraphy. Who knew it could be that easy?
- If you try it, please link me to your Instagram or other place you share your images; I\’d love to see!
And in the meantime, tell me in the comments – what does \”self care\” look like for you? And I\’m not talking here about mani-pedis, necessarily. I\’m talking about really caring for yourself. What does that look like?

And be sure to come back throughout the month while I share some ideas, challenges, and suggestions so that we can make September a great month together. And on September 3rd, I\’ll be back over at Delilah Devlin\’s blog for a guest post – watch for the link to come visit with me!
September 1, 2020
Writer Wednesday

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It\’s Wednesday, and I\’m a writer. That\’s about the only reason the title is what it is, and because I couldn\’t think of anything else to use. Check-in sounded too session-y, and holy shit the world\’s on fire a little histrionic. Both are, however, true. So this is a Writer Wednesday Check-In Because the World Is On Fire.

And in some ways, my sentiment is, Burn, baby, burn. It\’s well past time we reckon with the consequences of the genocide we\’ve committed against Black and brown people in this country, (I\’m in the U.S. if that wasn\’t already clear), and the convulsive changes occurring here and around the world are necessary for growth.

Sure ain\’t easy, though. Mr. Floyd was laid to rest yesterday. I keep trying to write something coherent about it but run up sharply against the fact that the world doesn\’t need another horrified white lady extolling … well, anything on race right now. No shit, it was horrible that he was murdered. But the truth is, this has been happening for hundreds of years, in big cities, in small towns, and in rural places in the back of beyond. Like Will Smith said, racism isn\’t new, it\’s just being filmed.

So how do we move forward from this moment? Particularly when we\’re gripped in a global pandemic and an environmental cataclysm that may make everything else moot if we don\’t get on it?

I don\’t know. And that\’s not a bad thing, this not-knowing. It\’s not comfortable, I know that. But I want to invite you to sit with that not-knowing, that place between what we knew to be true and the place of what is actually true, or at least the next threshold. The more we can hold this place of not-knowing, the better we can listen and have a chance to really hear the lessons we\’re being called to learn.

What that looks like for me is a couple things.

One is, I learned a new concept this week: \”Performative.\” There are many kinds of resistance and, unfortunately, we\’ve seen a lot of performative acts over the last week and a half in the wake of Mr. Floyd\’s murder by white people. The most egregious example of this are the statements by NFL CEO Roger Goodell, where he apologized to … whom, us? the players? Colin Kaepernick? for censuring players for their peaceful protests of police brutality. Why is this performative? It cost him nothing. Mr. Kaepernick wasn\’t re-signed, and the fines paid by him and other players have not been returned, at least as of this writing. But it\’s on a smaller, more localized scale too. Many of my fellow whites have been vociferous on social media about the horrors of racism and police brutality, and there\’s a subset of these folx who are acting as though they\’ve just become aware of it. There\’s also a sense that this is what we\’re doing this week, but next week when something else comes into our consciousness we\’ll go do that and forget about Black Lives Matter. What makes it performative is this aspect of publicly doing it: \”See? I\’m a good person because I\’m shouting out loud how bad this is, and how much it hurts me to see it, and how enraged I am.\” I\’m not going to restate things that BIPOC folx have said better and more informatively than I can, and frankly we should be listening to them.

Which is my point: I\’ve been very quiet the last week or so because I\’ve been sitting with my own racism and unconscious bias, and asking hard questions about why I\’m posting this or that? Am I doing it to keep the focus on BIPOC voices and activists? Am I doing what they are asking me to do as an ally, or am I doing things to make myself feel better or express my horror and outrage without realizing that the BIPOC community has been traumatized from watching on video Mr. Floyd\’s murder? The young woman, all of seventeen years old, who filmed the murder has been the subject of frequent harassment and has been made to feel unsafe. Is my jumping up and down going to help her? Or Mr. Floyd\’s devastated family and friends? I ask myself, if it was my family member murdered on a video went viral so that I see it everywhere from social media to the news to analysis shows, how would I feel?

And so, I\’m quiet. Because I\’d be fucking devastated.

I\’ve joined a private reading group to wrestle with these ideas and educate myself better. The book we\’ve chosen to read first is called How To Be An Anti-Racist, by Ibram X. Kendi. The link is to Chicago\’s only Black woman-owned bookstore. It\’s a safe space to discuss the ideas in the book as well as a place to ask embarrassing questions like, what do I tell my Black friend when her neighbor is acting badly? I\’d just call the police, but I don\’t fear that I might be shot if I did that. I\’m at absolutely no risk of it, and in fact depend on the authority my whiteness gives me. What does wipipo mean? Can I use it, or is that not a term that I should be using? How do I talk to my friends and coworkers of color about race? How do I not be an asshole when I\’m trying to help?

There are many resources, and if you\’re looking for things, may I suggest you look to BIPOC leaders who have already written extensively on the subject? You don\’t need me, a white person, educating you on how to be a better ally. We, each of us, need to be doing that work for ourselves and listening to the BIPOC thinkers who are willing to talk to us about it. And we need to not bother our friends, neighbors, and family members with it – they\’ve been traumatized by the events of recent days. It\’s not up to them to educate us. And we need to be very suspicious of our own desires to ask them: are we asking out of a genuine desire to know? Or are we asking them in specific so they know we\’re \”enlightened and woke\” now? If you absolutely don\’t know where to start, check out your public library. They\’ve got curated lists and librarians willing to answer all sorts of questions for you.

I know this is a long one, but thank you if you\’ve read with me this far. I wanted to share, and I wanted to write about what\’s going on, but it\’s been really difficult to find my voice in the middle of what\’s going on. For that reason, I\’ve decided to coordinate a session of Finding Water starting this Sunday. There is no charge for it and the course will go for fourteen weeks. Head on over to our writing group site, Writer Zen Garden, for more info.

Other than that, I\’ve been learning to weave and having a ball with it. I\’m also taking a class on Herbalism called the Science and Art of Herbalism, and I made some lavender tincture with brandy this week. It will steep for a month, and then we\’ll see how it turned out. I\’m going to start featuring more of that kind of activity on my craft blog, Knoontime Knitting. If you enjoy making things, I hope you\’ll come on over the join the conversation.

I hope you are staying safe and healthy. COVID appears to not be going away any time soon, so make sure to strengthen your immune system and be smart about being out and about in public. Hug your loved ones close and keep on writing.

Love,

Noony

June 10, 2020
Happy New Year! – Thoughtful Thursday

$\"\"$ I\’m glad it\’s the new year. It\’s an election year here in the States, finally, and I am optimistic about our ability to get ourselves back on the right track. It\’s funny, though; many years I feel called to set intentions or resolutions and I\’ve felt none of that this year. I\’m more interested in taking it easy and working on my mindfulness practice, which ultimately seems to be helping me with productivity. I feel like that\’s logically backwards but I\’m also superstitious enough to not want to mess with it if it\’s working.

Writing

This is still like pulling teeth. I trust that fallow periods are necessary, and things are starting to crack loose slowly, but man. Slow sucks. 🙂

I\’m working on drafting Ambush, and playing with a couple other things. One involves crow shifters and that\’s got both Rachel and I excited. I\’ve been messing around a little with poetry and memoir, and those are satisfying. I\’m re-reading Deena Metzger\’s Writing For Your Life, and it\’s been a good thing to revisit the silence of my own mind and thoughts. I like her ideas about writing and life, self expression, and psychology.

Community

One of the local writing organizations here has put out a call for Writer In Residence and I\’ve decided to apply. I think it sounds like a lot of fun and a great way to give back to the writing community while having a more structured place and time to specifically write.

This weekend, we have our first Soulwoman Circles of the Salish Sea event and I\’m excited. The SoulArt Pocket Vision Journal session still has spaces open and we\’d love to see you there on Saturday, January 18th. More info is on the link.

We\’re overhauling the Writer Zen Garden website and have a new forum and chat function available, which I\’m stoked about because I want to move off of Facebook. I don\’t like their practices or interference in our elections here in the States, and want to have an alternative for our members when we offer workshops and other events.

Day Job

I think working writers don\’t talk enough about working and writing, and it leads to the persistent myth that a) writers can easily make a full-time living by writing and that b) if one isn\’t doing so, one\’s writing isn\’t successful. Most of my colleagues who write full time have spouses who support them and pay the mortgage and other bills. It\’s rare that a writer can make a full time living. The Author\’s Guild just did their annual earnings survey and earnings have sharply fallen due to the consolidation of publishers, rise of independent publishing, and many other factors.

I work a day job in the insurance industry and have found it useful from several standpoints, one of the most important is that it grounds me on the left side of my brain. I can go to work and when I leave, I can leave my work at the office and not drag it home with me. That allows me to focus, without pressure, on my writing and other creative pursuits, knowing my bills are taken care of. I like to write in the mornings before work, and I used to write extensively during my commute on transit. I no longer commute that way and am trying to figure out where to fit that writing time in my current daily round.

Art

I\’m knitting like a fiend. I\’ve got a blanket going as well as two sweaters and a shawl. I find that deeply satisfying and meditative.

What about you, Dear Reader? What do you like to do to fill your creative well? What\’s new in your world? Tell me in the comments; I\’d love to know.

January 16, 2020
Hate Outlines? Timeline!

Keeping the plot of a novel-length manuscript can be a challenge for the most organized of writers. If you, like me, aren’t naturally left-brained sequential, then it can be more of a headache because your mind doesn’t organize information in a stepwise fashion. Have you ever looked at your story and realize that everything is happening in one day? or two different things are going on in the same night?

Reading a manuscript that is disorganized is no fun, for obvious reasons; but what do you do when you don’t like or can’t write to an outline?

One tool is a timeline that simply tracks each chapter and includes a simple sentence or two as to the action that takes place. I find that I have a bad habit of putting all my action on one or two days, and using a timeline helps me straighten all that out and figure out the flow of the action.

Here’s an example from Rachel and I, the timeline from our book, Burning Bright:

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I don’t start using a timeline until I’m about 10,000 or 30,000 words into a project. Once I have enough material to have a clear picture of the story, then I’m able to write down what I have and see where I am trying to go.

Another tool is to build a literal calendar:

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This is from an earlier draft of the book, when we first worked on sorting out when things happened. It’s important for the flow of the story that the action ebb and flow, rather than clot and spurt. The calendar can help you sort out who does what to whom when.

I hope whatever you use works for you. Every writer is different. But if you need some ideas for how to play with and reorganize your plots, I hope this generates some solutions for you.

Write on!

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Samhain Publishing blog, 01/28/2012.

February 12, 2017
A New Year\’s Party – and a Giveaway!
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The party over at The Romance Studio is in full swing! Throughout the weekend, I will be blogging on different topics – five posts a day! – as will the other participating authors. We have prizes from each of us, and the grand prize is a $100 USD gift certificate to the online retailer Amazon. If you like to read, then this is the party for you!

Friday the 13th!
Saturday the 14th
Sunday the 15th
Monday the 16th
1. Kon-Mari
2. Routine – Daily Round
3. Simple Abundance
4. Candles – Slow Down and Unplug
5. Happy New Year! The Writer Zen Garden
January 14, 2017
$Gone Visitin\’…$

Gone Visitin\’…

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Join me over at Delilah Devlin\’s blog today for some thoughts about hope. Today of all days, I think we need some o\’ that.

November 9, 2016
Write! Promptly! Writing Prompt! Free Workshop, Having Fun with Writing Prompts

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Have you always wanted to write? Are you already a writer, but stalled in getting words on the page? Are you a working author who needs some exercises to keep limber? Just looking for a good time? ~leer~

Well, you\’ve come to the write place. Join me at Coffee Time Romance, the award-winning forum for readers and authors. For the next two weeks, June 12th through June 25th, I\’ll be your facilitator for \”Having Fun with Writing Prompts.\” Together, we\’ll play on the page, write a lot, and just keep ourselves occupied with words. Lots, and lots, and lots of words.

Sound like fun? Great! Join me!

Coffee Time Romance Forum,
\”Having Fun with Writing Prompts,\”
Facilitated by A. Catherine Noon

June 12, 2016
Tue Cent Twosday – New Age Foo Foo

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I admit it. I read all sorts of stuff. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Stuff that defies description, but after you read it and someone asks you what you read, you’re all, “Um, stuff.”

When I was about fifteen, I got very curious in the nature of the soul and the existence of God. I blame this, appropriately enough, on my parents. (Isn’t everything their fault?) More specifically, it’s my dad. See, he studied to be a priest when he was in college. Nine years of becoming a Paulist Father (they’re the order involved with the media – television, radio, that kind of thing). He dropped out two months before he was to be ordained, citing significant philosophical uncertainty in the divinity of Christ.

All well and good, except that in first grade, my parents enrolled me in Catholic school.

Sorta confusing, you say? Tell me!

So what’s all this got to do with New Age Foo Foo? Well, when I was fifteen, my dad started studying Zen Buddhism. Now, when a man with a Masters in Philosophy, a B.A. in Theology, and a classical education decides to study something, they don’t fool around. Only trouble is, my dad doesn’t speak or read Japanese. Accordingly, copies of D.T. Suzuki and Lao Tzu started showing up all over his house. I asked him, “Dad, why do you have five – no, six – copies of Suzuki on the dining room table?” “Well, I’m studying Zen Buddhism. And I don’t read Japanese.”

…

“Um, Dad? These are all in English…?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Why, Dad? Why do you have six copies of Suzuki in English, to study Zen Buddhism, because you don’t read Japanese?”

“Those are all by different translators.”

It was then that I began to understand Zen. A little.

I’m very proud of the fact that I did not once take a nerf bat to his head.

Thought about it, though.

“Okay. You have six copies of D.T. Suzuki, all by different translators, in English because you don’t read Japanese, because you’re studying Zen Buddhism. WHY?”

“Because it’s the only way I can get as close as possible to the original language. See, it’s like this. Each translator sees the language a little differently, so they translate it a little differently. By reading them and comparing them, I can get as close as possible to the original language without actually speaking Japanese.”

Ask a stupid question…

So we started discussing Zen Buddhism. At dinner. Over ice cream. While doing chores.

And you know what? That stuff is kind of interesting! I started to ask about theology in general, and we were off. We talked about Saint Thomas Aquinas, who interpreted the works of Aristotle for the Church, we talked about religious hysteria when I subscribed for a while to a magazine called The Plain Truth, we talked about God and concepts of deity…

Fast forward to college. I got interested in different religions and went to church or temple with anyone who would take me. In college, I met some Wiccans and got invited to come to a ritual with them. I was, naturally, interested. One of the books they gave me was by a woman named Anodea Judith, a Western-trained Jungian psychologist who became interested in Eastern healing modalities. She wrote a book called The Sevenfold Journey, which is a primer about the chakras for Westerners. I loved it! Set up like a workbook, it has exercises for people to try, all associated with the individual chakras. (If you don’t know what a chakra is, hold on, I’ll tell you.) It had journal exercises, of course, but what I like about it is it has physical ones too, and music, spirituality, all sorts of things. You don’t have to change your religion to go through it, either – it explains the concepts and gives you stuff to do and think about.

A chakra is an ancient Hindu concept, which roughly translates to “spinning wheel.” And no, I did NOT read six different texts by different translators to find this out; I’ll trust Anodea Judith’s definition. The idea is that we have these wheels in our body, associated with major intersections of nerves. This makes a lot of sense to me, actually, since nerves transmit electrochemical impulses. The idea that there is an ‘energy’ associated with that transmission seems plausible, since electricity is energy. There are several chakra systems, depending who you talk to. Judith teaches about seven major ones.

What does this have to do with writing?

Good question. Judith has a number of tools in her books, not just The Sevenfold Journey, that allow a person to ruminate on themselves and their place in the universe. I figure, I’ll snag one or two each issue and share my thoughts about them. If you want to try them in the privacy of your own morning pages, more power to you.

I won’t, though, translate for you.

This was originally posted on my now discontinued blog, Noonsense, 07/27/2010.

May 17, 2016
$Luck O\’ The Irish! Enter To Win $100 Gift Card and Other Prizes. Plus, Blog Posts from Noony!$

Luck O\’ The Irish! Enter To Win $100 Gift Card and Other Prizes. Plus, Blog Posts from Noony!
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It\’s that time o\’ the year, me dears! The St. Patrick\’s Day Party at The Romance Studio! You can enter to win a $100 USD gift card from the online retailer Amazon, books from Noon & Wilder and other fabulous authors, and read excerpts, recipes, stories and more! Won\’t you join us?

Here\’s the links to my posts, so it\’s easy to find. Won\’t you stop by and comment? You\’ll be glad you did, and I\’ll feel the love. What could be better?

Happy reading!

Sunday, March 13th

(Note – I don\’t have any posts on the 12th due to a family emergency, but there is plenty of content from my fellow authors so don\’t be shy!)
Monday, March 14th
Tuesday, March 15th
Wednesday, March 16th
Thursday, St. Patrick\’s Day!
March 13, 2016
Wandering Around the Web – Two for Thursday

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Join me at the Torquere Press LiveJournal for a Field Trip to the Field Museum!

It\’s one of my favorite museums, and it\’s open free during February to Illinois residents! Some writer buds and I went last weekend and I have the pictures to prove it! 🙂 Join me!

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Join me on LinkedIn for a discussion about Triberr and some ways to use it.

Triberr is an effective tool to boost your reach and I chat about some of the ways I\’ve been using it. Join me!

February 25, 2016