Not really sure what to write about right now but figure it’s best to get a blog post out before I take my second GMAT practice test.
I have been missing in action lately, at least in the blogging world. Have been paralyzed by writers’ block and therefore have avoided any writing on here. I’m always active on social media, especially Twitter, considering now I participate in many more Twitter chats than before.
I use writers’ block as an excuse for the lack of blog posts when in reality I know that I have a lot to write about: I just don’t know where to start or where to focus. If you have been following my blog for some time, you remember how I spent a period of time last year blogging about career-related topics, such as the job hunt, handling conflict at the workplace, and so forth. Then, these past two years I have also taken interest in writing about local Denver companies/brands and what I love about them.
I want to continue to write about local businesses, but in terms of other topics (the career one included), I just find myself getting stuck. What do I want to be known for? Career advice? Social media? A smorgasbord of topics?
Maybe I am just putting myself into a box and doing more harm than good. I’m not sure; what are your thoughts?
I’ve known Kristin Glenn of seamly.co since the days of Revolution Apparel in 2012, when they launched their Kickstarter for the Versalette. I was immediately hooked on the idea: a piece of clothing that can be worn 15 different ways?! Sign me up!
Last year, Revolution Apparel closed down and Kristin and her cofounder Shannon Whitehead went their separate ways. Kristin started up seamly.co here in Denver and ever since, I’ve been one of their hugest fans! I LOVE the company’s mission in making sustainable clothing, and each piece of clothing usually has multiple ways to wear it. I am all about convertible fashion since that helps me reduce the number of clothing items in my closet.
I’m clearly on my way to buying all of the company’s clothing!
Definitely a rad sweatshirt! (Photo courtesy of seamly.co)
In terms of this fall season’s newest offerings, I am most looking forward to the Moto Sweatshirt, which is currently running on Kickstarter to raise money to purchase the awesome Canadian-made fleece material for the shirt. I don’t know about you, but I am LOVING the asymmetrical zipper and the fact that this shirt sounds so super-warm!
So go ahead, go support this awesome company and buy some great, sustainable clothing.
My last post was mid-June, before the Summer Solstice; and now, here we are on September 1st, Labor Day, and the summer is now unofficially (officially?) over.
I started off the summer with two big changes: a new apartment and a new gig. Both have served me well over the past three months and have helped propel me towards even more positive changes.
Sometimes serendipity stumbles upon an ordinary situation and straight smacks me in the face with opportunity. That’s essentially what has happened since June and mid-July. 2014 started off with great positive light and has continued to surprise me with good fortune. I continue to stay grateful and appreciative for all that has come my way.
My social media expertise has been in more demand these days and I find myself drifting a bit from writing long form: tweets are my forte now and I tend to run from my blogging duties as you have well noticed.
While I have made promises in the past regarding a regular blogging schedule here, this time I will just simply say that I will blog as often as I can, but I cannot adhere to a schedule at this time. Sounds like a cop-out, but I find that when I make a public promise about my blogging schedule, I don’t follow through and end up disappointing myself. I’d rather this time, if I do become inspired to blog on a regular basis, that that’ll happen as a happy accident rather than something that I force myself to adhere to.
Anyway, this post was quite a rambling one, so I will just leave the post at that. Change is the only constant in life and I am excited to see where life takes me next. Stay tuned for a possible post on Wednesday (theme unknown at this point!).
Hearing Jonathon’s story really inspired me to attend his walking trips around the Denver Metro area. I have met so many incredible people on these walking excursions: people I wouldn’t have met if I had stuck with my usual crowd at startup events. Walk2Connect has grown to many followers these days, considering the organization has expanded to include more daily walking trips throughout the Denver Metro area (such as Park Hill Sunrise Walks, Five Points at Dusk, and many more) in the past year.
Got to hold an egg-laying hen at last year’s Walk2Connect Farm-To-Table Experience in Wheat Ridge!
My favorite Walk2Connect trips have been walks where a bit of local food-making is involved, such as the Wheat Ridge Farm-To-Table walk last summer: we walked to several farms in Wheat Ridge and collected ingredients to make pizza at Right Coast Pizza after our walk. The beer and the delicious pizza were all well worth the nine miles of walking!
I really hope more Denver-area residents get to experience Walk2Connect at least once in their lifetimes. The walks are a great alternative and active way to meet new people in your neighborhood, city, region. Plus, Jonathon’s personality is so infectious with his laughter and impeccable enthusiasm for life. You’ll be glad to have met Jonathon and the other walkers on your next trip: they’re sure to change your life.
Today’s post is special because it’s part of a larger project: My Writing Process Blog Tour. Back to regular programming next week!
Thanks to one of my favorite writers and good friend, Craig Lancaster (author of books such as 600 Hours of Edward & The Summer Son), I am partaking in this little blog tour. The premise is to answer four simple questions regarding my personal writing process and then tagging three additional writers to join in on the tour. Easy, right? 🙂
1. What are you working on?
Remember Novel 1, aka Writing the Past? My very first novel from NaNoWriMo 2007 (yes, that was my first time participating in the frenzy). It is now nearly seven years later: at the beginning of this year, I finally got the manuscript going again with some editing from Shonell Bacon, another fellow writer but also excellent editor. Just last week, I got around to organizing her comments on my manuscript and have started working on some grammatical issues, chapter by chapter. I want to get this novel published before my 30th birthday next January, but I will also be content to just have the final manuscript ready for agents before my birthday.
I am also working on getting some freelance blogging gigs, so if you know of any good leads, holler at me!
2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?
At the moment, I don’t know which genre Writing the Past should be included in. However, I do know that when I started writing this novel, I knew that I wanted to write the story of a family without fitting the family into a stereotypical box that other Asian-American writers tend to fall for in their novels. Unsure of if I’ll be successful with this notion in the final manuscript.
3. Why do you write what you do?
If you’ve noticed via my blog categories, I have written more than one novel since 2007. Granted, the rest of these are all at first drafts currently, but nonetheless, I got the words down. My novels have dealt with light and dark themes stemming from personal observations and sometimes personal experiences. I like to think I write what I write because I ultimately want to live vicariously through my characters.
4. How does your writing process work?
So far, my writing process has been just writing on the fly, especially during NaNoWriMo in November. The community in November really gets me motivated to get my word count up for each of my novels. Then, as you can see from my experience with Writing the Past, I wait out several years before I get around to edits and revisions, haha.
Naturally, I would love for this process to change so I can get more of my novels ready for publication after Writing the Past!
Now it’s time to tag the next writers!
Christin Haws is a long-time friend of mine online: we’ve known each other since Livejournal days (I believe that’s how we got connected). Christin writes short stories and just recently released her first self-published novel, A Tale of Two Lady Killers. She’s a huge baseball fan and rerun junkie.
Shonell Bacon is another long-time friend of mine, probably also from Livejournal; I don’t remember anymore! Shonell is: author, editor, educator, and sexy coffee lover! You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Megan E. Evans is a newer friend and fellow Denver resident. Megan is a freelance graphic designer, artist, and creative writer. She recently launched her blog Womb of Words as an accountability project on completing 100,000 words in nine months for a new work of fiction.
Thus continues the blog tour next week with these fine ladies!
