The One
An iconic place,
I scour my photo album.
Attempting to find that
one picture,
The pinnacle moment
captured by the lens.
Images tainted with memory
Fragrant ignition to my past.
An extract from today’s NaPoWriMo Poem
Apr1
Daily Archives: April 1, 2013
Apr1
NaPoWriMo – I have now pitched a second tent in the poetry camp!
Now I am truly excited! I have just found out about 
I have joined and plan to hike between the manuscript on NaNoWriMo and poems everyday!
It’s not too late to join (I just managed it!) the only thing I haven’t worked out is if we work on our own material or if there are prompts. Going back to read the noticeboard!
You write whatever you want, wherever you want. Here’s what else I found out.
NaPoWriMo coincides with the National Poetry Month in the United States of America and Canada. Kudos to Maureen Thorson who created it in 2003. I have submitted the blog – I will be posting extracts of my daily poems. I may want to use them throughout the year to submit and they will need to be previous unpublished.
I look forward to reading lots of NaPoWriMo poetry and for all of you keeping it in a journal, enjoy!
23 more poets have added their sites since I started writing this post. Wow! I think they are aiming to beat 1000 participants this year. You could make that happen!
Apr1
Camp NaNoWriMo – woah woah woah! Day 1# 1/30
Oh my goodness! I feel like I have been trekking in hot walking boots all day! 
The term ‘writing marathon’ is used literally… I realise this now!
It didn’t help that I did most things to avoid starting on the wordcount today. All useful things like adding the past three months of freelance writing into separate folders on the PC. Blogging. Sorting out the April Writing Schedule.
The result was I had already completed 4 hours writing and research BEFORE I made it to camp!
TOMORROW I will try a new approach. Writing the camp manuscript 1st – possible having breaks, Today I wrote for 3 hours straight. I did SMASH the 1667 wordcount, but it was rather like pulling teeth as the expression goes.
An amazing 1735 whoahooo words! That’s a good start at least.
The other good news (for me) is that there is someone else ACTIVE in my Cabin.
Feel free to add your camp days if you are also on this wild trek through the writing wilderness!
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-tents-up-the-fun-hard-work-begins/
Apr1
Blogging – PART 1 – My Journey – including tips & links
PART 1 My Journey
My Organic Approach
In late 2012 I became part-time and saw it as a perfect opportunity to restart my freelance writing career. It was the right time.
In January 2013 I decided to start my blog. https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/about/
I had already subscribed to writing magazines and WordPress was often mentioned in articles. I did some quick Google research and decided out of the 3 top blogging platforms WP was my choice too. I had no idea HOW TO use wordpress and my method was ‘trial and error’. The only webpages I could find to guide me through the HOW TO were walking me through things I had already worked out.
Since then I have found these Blogs which have been tremendously helpful.
(Links to follow)
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/
http://wordpress.com/#!/read/blog/id/3584907/
In the Beginning
In the beginning all I needed was to
- know how to set up your blog
- know the reason for blogging
Set up your Blog
This was easy, I fumbled through trial and error, creating awritersfountain, choosing my theme from many, changing it 3 times until I was happy with how it looks. (Technically I have since discovered that my chosen theme doesn’t allow for sidebar information and extra widgets, there may come a time that I decide this is more important for readers than looking pretty.)
Reason for Blogging
To document my freelance journey, to keep myself on track, to get involved in the writing community.
_________
I didn’t even consider the need for knowledge or my promotional marketing strategies, these were of no importance to me. They evolved naturally over time and went like this;
JANUARY 
- Mail shot my writing friends and let them know I had a blog, encourage them to follow (3)
- Post, my background, reasons for the Blog (I knew this needed to be obvious)
- Gradually I learnt about categories and tags what they were and how to use them.
- I discovered freshly pressed and dreamed of appearing.
- I started to read and follow other blogs.
- I discovered some writing challenges and started to take part.
- Number of followers grew.
- I learnt the importance of making sure I had balance between the blog writes and my freelance schedule.
- I was concerned about Copyright – I was using my own photography.
FEBRUARY
- I blogged as often as I could – when I had something to say, I didn’t want to be writing a diary.
- I was no longer typing into a void and knew that people were reading and liking some of the posts.
- I decided to create my own Writing Challenge for AWF (my blog)
- I created a Contribute page.
- I changed the organisation and management of my freelance work.
- Followers grew, as did the list of blogs I follow.
- I learnt extra things about HOW TO wordpress.
- I started to save Copyright Free Stock Images to use on my Blog.
MARCH
- My freelance schedule was huge, the projects I undertook were much bigger than an article or one off submission.
- I had to do a lot of research for my writing and in doing so developed a curiosity to find out more about Blogging.
- I started to research creating and marketing successful blogs.
- I managed to balance the writing on and offline.
- My strategies for managing my freelance writing worked and I developed more effective ways of working.
- I signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo in April.
- I signed up for a workshop in April.
- I read a lot of articles about Writing and Authors.
- I found even more writing challenges and blogs including some on Blogspot.
- AWF followers grew to nearly 100 (97)
- I realised it is quality over quantity – both in terms of my posts and followers. People started liking in February, by March we were involved in proper conversation. I had often seen posts with 1000’s of likes and thought WOW! Now I would rather have a few some comments that 1000’s of people not telling me what they think.
- No-one contributed to the AWF writing challenge and I decided to shelve it for now.
A Quarter of the Way
Here I am in beginning my 4th month of blogging with 130 posts and 97 followers, I am involved in many challenges (I promote later in Part 2) and have sent 14 submissions. I have had 2 rejections and 1 accepted for publication (print/book). My writing schedule increases month by month as does my LOVE for the time with my laptop. My creative spirit has been nagging me for years to get up and do this… and now I do. I wake up everyday and write!
In PART 2 I will share with you my findings from the research and include more useful tips and links.
Research
I would love to hear your thoughts, how do you find the World of WordPress Blogging?
Apr1
The Tent’s Up & the Fun (hard work) Begins!
Today is first day of camp for Spring NaNoWriMo writers. Are you a camper?
I have never participated before, as I can’t afford a writing retreat I thought it was a good idea.
I am a camp ‘rebel’ as I am continuing work on my non-fiction manuscript, 9 chapters in. I owe it words as it has been on the backburner whilst I attempted several book proposals & other writing missions in March.
I have to aim for 1667 words a day, looking at the schedule I know some days will be less & others will be more.
I am off to the campsite now to pen my 1st few 1000 words.
GOOD LUCK to those of you camping! 
https://awritersfountain.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/im-going-camping/
Apr1
Picture it & write challenge – Moon
I haven’t managed to join in with a Picture it and write challenge as my March writing schedule was packed full. I was delighted to find this image. If you want to join in you can find a link to ermiliablog and the challenge under the contributor button.
Moon
*
As a child
I would lie in bed,
Pull the curtains open
and stare at the bright moon
in the sky.
*
I used to tell all my
wishes and dreams
to the moon.
It would always listen.
*
The moon changed,
over time it
grew fuller.
Hanging peacefully in
velvet darkness
every night.
*
Absorbing more and
more of my
secrets
it grew,
bigger and bigger.
*
Empty
I found myself
able to sleep.
Some formatting issues, hence using *
awritersfountain 