A Blog Hop of Her Own

Not long ago, my friend Jennie Locati invited me to participate in a “blog hop.” I’ve been friends with Jennie for longer than I care to remember, but we lost touch for many years. When we finally reconnected, I was pleased to discover that she is still as smart and interesting as I remembered. I’ve tweeted and reblogged several of her WYS Words posts before, because she often has valuable things to say on topics I like to talk about.

I was honored to be invited to join her blog hop, and being included sent my page views through the roof (to quote the WordPress alert message). Jennie’s blog hop was such a positive experience that I decided to keep it going, although it pained my introverted rejection-phobic heart to do it.

Blog Hop

As Jennie explained,

A Blog Hop is a chance to talk a bit about why you write, to show off a few of your friends, and hopefully introduce them to a wider audience. So, I’ll do the answering a few questions part and then get on to the good part of introducing you to a few of my friends and bragging about them a bit. 

So here is mine.

My Writing Life

When I was a little kid, I was a writer. I had lots of stories in my head, and I wanted to put them on paper and share them with the world. Then I grew up and stopped being a writer. I tried, with varying degrees of failure to be anything else before finally starting to write again. After three and a half years as a staff writer for local government, I have just taken the plunge into freelance writing.

What Am I Currently Working On

This year my goal is to write a minimum of two blog posts every week without fail. Like the woman in the cheesy movie Sibling Rivalry, I have also written a lot of good beginnings. Another one of my goals this year is to write an ending (of any quality). Having given up my day job writing technical and policy documents for local government, my professional writing is flux, but I have written articles on Bumbershoot, The Melodic Caring Project, and Cleft Palate coming out in the ParentMap magazine in the next couple of months.

Why Do I Write What I Do?

Someone once told me the definition of a voracious reader is someone who can’t resist reading their bubblegum wrapper. (I don’t always chew gum, but when I do, I read the wrapper.) Now I am a voracious writer, too. Tweets, status updates, blog posts, features, business documents, and coming soon, fiction. They are all stories and I love them all. My favorite thing is to take something complicated and explain it simply, without sacrificing accuracy.

How Does Your Process Work?

I’m really not made for the internet. Although I can turn around a piece in a hurry if required, I am a fairly slow writer. I edit as I write without really knowing that I’m doing it, so a blog post can take a couple hours. Although I call it a first draft, every sentence has been rewritten three times. I’ve gotten much better at trimming the fat, but I still like to dive deeper into the details and backstory than befits a blog.

Blog Hop Featured Writers

I met Canadian writer Arielle Demchuk at Iceland Writers Retreat. Arielle is smart, young, pretty, and knows what she wants to do with her life. By all rights I should hate her, but she is also an incredible smartass who shares many of my interests, which I find quite endearing. She is also very active on Twitter, which makes it easy to keep in touch.

I don’t actually know Eva Langston at all, but one of the great things about the internet is the way it helps you find people you can relate to, and reading Eva’s excellent blog, In the Garden of Eva, makes you feel like you’ve caught up with a friend. Since discovering her blog, I’ve really enjoyed reading her posts about writing and Seattle, and even though we’ve never met, I’m a little sad that she’s moving.

Arielle Demchuk (@D_chuk314)

Arielle Demchuk writes stories, reads books, takes pictures, and drives to work. She spends an exorbitant amount of money on tea and used records. She caught the travel bug in 2008 and has been trying to medicate it with unpredictable journeys ever since. To keep her wanderlust in check, she keeps memories of her travels on her writing blog, as well as guest blogging for Go Abroad and Stuck in Iceland.

Eva Langston

Virginia-native Eva Langston received her MFA in Fiction Writing in 2009 from the University of New Orleans then went right back to teaching high school math. It wasn’t until the summer of 2012 that she decided to quit teaching and truly focus on her writing. Since then, she has written three novels, and recently she obtained an agent with Conville & Walsh. In addition to reading and writing, she Skype tutors Ukrainians, writes math curriculum, and does a lot of yoga. Her blog about writing and life is often quite personal (sometimes overly so?), and was recently “Freshly Pressed” by WordPress. She is looking forward to (yet another) cross-country move and the possible sale of her first novel!