Change is Scary, but Good .

Since the time I started blogging over two years ago, I have always attempted to keep myself to a required schedule of writing a post a day (with the exception of a few terms of hiatus). For many people, having such a schedule usually only induces stress and disappointment as they struggle to deal with chaotic schedules both personally and professionally. For the most part, I have found the allotted time slot in which to write a welcome reprieve from the busy days that fill my life. However, over the past month or so, I am beginning to realize that there is just too much going on right now, and I have no doubt that when school starts that will only multiply. While I think that writing everyday is great and has been a real benefit for me, it is quite evident, especially in the past few weeks, that it has become another weight that I can only attempt to balance, and that my blog has been neglected a bit lately.

That being said, I've decided that I'm not going to try to require to post everyday anymore. I initially had expectations of something like a daily insight or something like that, and when I publish them into books I would have that for years to come. But, while not always welcome, change is something that happens whether we want it to or not, inadvertent or desired. And often times, if change is pushing that hard, the best thing to do is relinquish your grasp on the past and simply allow it to run its course. While I am mildly disappointed at giving up on the initial plan, I think that writing when inspiration hits me most will allow each and every one of my posts to be a more of a true gem, rather than a forced insight to the day.

In many ways, not keeping to a schedule often contributes to a forgotten blog. But just because the schedule isn't every day doesn't mean that it can't exist at all. I haven't quite decided what to do just yet. I wonder if maybe a schedule is just silly. But I do like the idea of something on Monday mornings, something to kick off the week for readers on a high note. So that's that for right now.

Moving in a slightly different direction, I've begun to write a lot of snail mail. Some people respond and some people don't, but regardless it's fun to send stuff out. It's even more fun to get return letters in the mail from friends. I'd like to extend the invitation to all the readers out there of sending mail back and forth. A few weeks ago I got a letter from Angie from "the best part of my day" and it was one of the best things I could have received. It really picked me up that day and honestly carried me through the whole week! I also am planning to set up a sort of quarterly newsletter that just sort of contains things about my life to keep my friends in the loop. It's not something they need to respond to, but it at least keeps people in the loop, even if they don't respond. Maybe it will be a good replacement for my lack of a Facebook. Probably more fun too, because you can keep it tucked away somewhere. Who knows. Something I want to try at least. If you're interested, feel free to shoot me an email at asmallpieceofgodsplan(at)gmail.com

And finally, I'm opening the floor to guest-posters! Admittedly I don't have a ton of followers so it's not like you're going to get huge amounts of publicity, but if you have something you'd like to talk about, a topic you'd like commented on round-table fashion, or just ramblings you'd like to be shared, hit me up. Even if you just want to shoot the shit for a while through email. Hope you all have a wonderful end to the week.

Finding a Title .

When I start my posts, I usually start with an idea. It is just one thing that may have touched me throughout the day, a thought that went through my head, a quote, or a simple event during the day. But just because you have one thought doesn't mean that you can write an entire post about it. I guess what usually happens is that one little piece kickstarts the rest of the post. It will wander and go places that I never intended to, but that's totally okay.

My boss often talks about writing books this way. I'll ask how the writing is going and how the story is going and he'll say he's not sure what's going to happen next. In the most simplistic way, basically he puts the characters in a situation and just lets them react. As long as you know your characters beyond slight acquaintance, you'll know what they would do in the situation.

However one of the hardest things I find about blogging is putting a title up there. Sometimes I don't know what to write. Sometimes I want to just leave it blank. Often is I'll mold the idea that I had into some semblance of a title, that supposedly explains in a phrase what the entirety of the post is about. But how is it even possible to condense an entire lengthy post into a few words? With the utmost concise clarity is probably a viable answer.

I do think that the important thing to remember here is that the title does not have to fully dictate what you are writing about. It's your blog and your words, and if it wanders off the beaten path a bit before coming back to the beginning, so be it. In fact the deviations from said path are often the most interesting part because they are the sidenotes, footnotes, and added thoughts by the person writing. They are the pieces that the person will chuckle to him or herself while writing. Or something that popped into their mind that they wanted to share.

Of course, if you run a blog that is centered around a specific topic, you sort of have to stay within some boundaries, and maybe even all the stuff I just wrote down is all null and void.

At the end of the day it all comes down to your style. You gotta do you, and some people start with a title, some people find it halfway through, and some still struggle to find it at the very end (fun fact: the same thing happens when you're writing songs!). So what's your style? How do you write? Feel free to share in the comments.

Reflection: From Blog Posts to Books .

Lately I have been working on putting my blog posts into a hard copy book. Each six months, I make a new book, and the hope is that eventually, at the end of all things I will have an entire volume of my life. It will sort of be like an encyclopedia collection, albeit hopefully a touch more interesting.

I don't spend too much time editing, but even so it takes a long time. Copy and paste every single post from the internet to the MS word document I'm using. I have to only use the Firefox browser, because it copies text a certain way. I need to adjust spacing, and include post breaks (usually just a * * * sandwiched vertically by blank spaces). And somehow the spacing always gets totally screwed up. Certain words will go from legible text to those random boxed wing ding characters, and I have to search for those. Ideally I would reread through all my posts to correct grammatical , spelling and contextual errors, non-sequiturs and confusing parts. Because as I'm sure many of you know, Blogger neglects to correct spelling as you type. Thankfully my Macbook Pro usually does correct spelling no matter where you're typing or what application you are in, but regardless it sometimes even changes stuff to a word you don't want.

In the essence of saving myself time in the long run, I've begun to type my posts a little bit slower. My fingers have a tendency to like to really fly across the keyboard, mishitting all kinds of keys like a toddler trying to play Chopin on the piano. My hope is that taking a little bit of extra time on each post will save me a lot of editing time later down the road.

The author I currently work for bought me a book a few months ago called "APE", co-authored by Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch. It's all about self-publishing a book, digitally, from start to finish. I knew some extremely basic ideas about the publishing process just from talking with my boss, but I realized after reading the book that what I really knew was practically nothing. There is so much more than typing words on a page, designing a cover and printing it.

Because of the sort of work I do for the author (Carl T. Smith if you have any interest in looking him up) I focused mainly on the entrepreneurial section, which revolved around marketing techniques and other similar topics. That alone blew my mind. In a sea of social media options, automated application supplements, and 6 billion people in the world, it just isn't easy to pick which platforms you want to use, because Lord knows you cannot use and manage and be active on them all. I only work one, maybe two hours a day and I rarely even get to log into all the things that we run, between Twitter and Facebook, Author's Den, Goodreads and more.

Basically what I'm getting at here is that putting a book together takes so much time. Don't get me wrong it's totally awesome to have my words printed on the page, and while I fully expect this website to be here and hold my info, it's really nice having a hard copy of it. It's cool to even see a bar code on the back cover, with a blurb that I wrote myself about that particular six months worth of time, and even an ISBN number assigned by Lulu, the online publisher I use.

I'm sure that there are errors all over the place in the book. But in the end, the main point gets across. However as of recently, while I've been copying over my posts from early 2013 to a word document, I noticed that a lot of my posts have been really short. It made me start to wonder if maybe trying to blog everyday can be detrimental. That maybe what should yield a nice stream-of-consciousness flow in fact results in an obstructed thought process. I do really like writing everyday. And sometimes I just don't have time and so I write multiple posts later on to "catch up." I don't mind doing that in the least. But if I do write, I want to have the time to make it worthwhile. To really be able to get a little bit lost in my thoughts and explore all that I'm writing about. Granted sometimes I don't have that luxury. But when the majority of posts I see from myself seem abrupt and cut off, as if almost unfinished business, it seems as though I can do better. And so in the coming weeks, I'm going to attempt to let my thoughts seep through my mind to my fingers as water through a tea bag -- letting out all those tantalizing literary flavors, while filtering out the nonsense.

I hope you've enjoyed the journey so far, as I know I sure have. Everyone is busy, everyone has an ongoing list of things to do, places to go, and people to meet. Sometimes you get behind, sometimes you need to regroup, sometimes you need to focus in and sometimes you need to step back and look at the big picture and adjust your focus (to use a huge photography metaphor...). But what can you do? That's Simply, Life.

Writers Write. Right?

Pretty much anyone who's "made it" in the literary industry will tell those aspiring up-and-comers that if you want to get serious about writing that you need to do it everyday. You can't only write when you feel like it, or when you feel inspired, or when you decide you have the time to sit down and do it. It has to be all the time.

I wouldn't really consider myself a writer (though one day maybe) but I will say that writing / blogging daily is soooo not easy. When I first started a blog a few years ago, I knew that I wanted it to be an everyday thing. I felt like I had so much to say, and I did and do -- but often am not really sure of where to begin things. I also often have a tendency to ramble on about things completely different from the main point I'm trying to make (for real... happens all the time). And yet despite the difficulties of writing daily, I still do my best to do it. As it is I've already had to take two hiatuses due to schoolwork, but that's life and it happens and I know i'll make it back up somehow.

Writing, in my opinion should be something you love. And naturally, if you force yourself to do it all the time, there is a possibility that you won't be able to spend time on the other things that you want to do. It may even lose the magical appeal that was present that lured you in to that profession in the beginning.

And so while I will continue to attempt to write daily, maybe you all have some comments about how you write. The floor is open!

Tips for Up and Coming Bloggers .

So you've just started your blog and you are already finding that you are struggling to think of what to write about. However, you really think blogging would be a cool venture and you want to continue writing. Well I'm glad that you found this post, because I'm going to help you out!

For a lot of people that start blogging, they are not used to sharing their thoughts on the internet in such an extended fashion. While I would venture a guess that most people in their 20's and 30's these days have either a Facebook, a Twitter or both, the tidbits of information shared there are far from the content and thought needed for a blog post. Let's be honest, you can't really write a substantial amount about what sandwich you're eating for lunch (...or can you? challenge anyone?).

Most people sit down at their computer, trying to think about what to write about, and draw blanks. Hell, I still do that a lot of the time and I've been blogging for several years. The key to it all is harnessing the inspiration when it hits you. Now most of us have a relatively demanding schedule and that means that we can't DEAB -- that is Drop Everything And Blog (haha, anybody remember DEAR? Drop Everything And Read in grade school??). So find a way to write down a few quick notes or tidbits so that you can write about it later. I use sticky notes on my computer, written notes on my class notebooks, texts to myself, whatever fits your fancy, is quick and convenient.

Now I know a few people that, when starting a blog, say "Oh, I'm going to get myself on a blogging schedule.." While it's nice to have little reminders for yourself to write down your thoughts, it should be noted that there is no requirement on how much or how often you have to blog. No one is going to judge you if you don't post often, though they may very well implore you to write more often because they enjoy reading about your life! I write every day, but that's because I actually create books out of my blog posts. That way in years to come, I'll literally have an entire volumed set of my life on paper. Pretty cool; I like keeping up with that. It'll be an amazing thing for my kids to read one day, if I have kids. And if not, I can always revisit that later.

If you're struggling with inspiration, just turn the lights off and try to go to bed early. I have so many things flying around my head when I'm trying to sleep it's not even funny, which is usually why I write before I go to sleep.

And most of all? Read other people's blogs. You'll find that not only do you make a lot of connections that turn into great friends, motivators and encouragers and people you can share your success and sadness alike with, but also they will become people that you can draw inspiration from.

There's no need to force yourself to do anything. It's no secret that blogging is not for everything, just as vlogging and Youtube videos are not for everyone. Just look inside yourself and listen really hard to hear your inner dialogue. Believe me, your brain is a lot more active with all these random thoughts than you might think. I hope that if someone is contemplating starting a blog, that this encourages you to get started! And remember, if you really hate it? You can always stop writing! It shouldn't be a chore; it should be something enjoyable, rewarding and exciting! Happy blogging!

**If you know of friends who are looking for a few pointers to get started feel free to forward them to this post!

writing and writing to.

When I first started this blog I used to just write. It didn't really matter if I had readers or not because they didn't exist. I just spilled out whatever came to mind. Although, as time goes on the inevitable happens and you meet some other bloggers, you comment on people's stuff, and your blog gets a little bit of recognition.

Now some people are blogger addicts (not saying that's a bad thing) and put an awful lot of time into not only writing but reading other people's blogs, looking up new blogs, adding comments. I purposely limit myself a bit what I comment on, because if I comment on everything then I feel like my comments have less validity and purpose. That way people will know that if I commented, then I was really touched and it'll mean a lot more.

ash wednesday .

I was trying to think an appropriate and profound way to approach the mood of the day, and couldn't find one. However, while messing around on my laptop, I came across an article about Ash Wednesday on AOL news and ended up following a link to a poem called Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot. While I consider myself somewhat of a mediocre writer, I think that he can say it better than I ever could. Don't forget; no meat today and make sure you have something for your Lenten fast! Enjoy the poem:

my pledge .

So now that I'm caught up again on blogs, I want to make a pledge. While I must confess I've been slacking, I don't want to do that. It's not that I feel bad when I don't write, but I don't get to experience the daily catharsis that writing brings for me. Not to mention, you all don't get to read about it either, but who knows how important this read is anyways. So I'm going to try really hard to write each day. I may even set a time that I write every night. Maybe the key to not procrastinating and getting behind is simply having a schedule (I know Dad is nodding his head and saying "I told you so!" right now..).

reading and writing and reading and writing .

Over this semester thus far, I've done more reading and writing simultaneously than I've ever done. That is, of course, excepting those ridiculous summer reading book competitions when I was reading children's books and could read a children's fiction book in a day... Regardless, I'm in the middle of reading three different books, writing one with ideas for three or four more, blogging daily (or rather, more accurately, blogging as close to daily as I can) and I have several more books waiting to get started that a friend has given me. So much reading! More and more though, I'm beginning to love it. Imagine a life where all you did was read and write?

writers .

Being a writer isn't what it used to be. Think way back when there were no computers. People are scrawling notes on napkins, in notebooks, trying to remember their plots and characters in their heads. The status of 'writer' was an elite one, where people really had to work to get their stuff to even be accepted by an editor. Times have certainly changed, eh?

Barcelona: Day 105 : Outside .

I don't know where this is originally quoted from, but it stuck out to me today. The quote is that "the artist must stand alone to observe a crowd." I semi consider myself a bit of a writer, simply by the quantity that I write and the fact that I do it so often. It's a great thing for me, and I really enjoy it. Writers, are, in a way, an artist of words, using them to paint a true picture for us to view in our heads. I'd like to consider myself good with words, knowledgeable in vocabulary and strong in being able to get my point across not only concisely but also in an artistic way. I've always wanted to write a book. But what does that really entail?

Prepare yourself .

This post isn't going to be like the others. In fact it's not even related to Barcelona at all... It shouldn't come as a surprise that I love writing, and every so often I get really inspired to write. I'd like to start writing short stories and eventually a novel, but I already write poems often (in my book I call them lyrics, but same deal) and of course I'm always writing on this blog. I think in time I'm going to start another blog (I know, you're thinking, whattttt, a THIRD one? It may or may not be an addiction..) that I will post literary works on; things that I'm proud of that I've written, or whatever. Honestly if I do start another blog there probably won't be new posts very often, but that's okay. Anyways, I got inspired with this one, and before you click the 'read more' button I'd like you to clear your head and really try to forget about everything, because I don't think you'll get the full effect if you don't. I'd love some feedback on this one... so hit me up. Enjoy this; hopefully there will be more to come in the future. Also, keep in mind this is still a work in progress.

writing .

With the number of career choices that are out there, it's pretty unbelievable that anyone can really make a true decision on what they want to do with the rest of their lives. For me, it always seemed pretty easy -- I always have loved building things. It was never as much fun having the 'thing' once it was built, it was the building it that was fun. Even more exciting was completely ignoring whatever instructions came with your building set and just putting together things however you wanted. Part of the challenge was making it all work.