2010 in Review: And Stay Out

[Kate Jones]

So a couple weeks ago I blogged about writing without fear, and then promptly went back to the same sort of stuff I've been writing for two years now.

I blame Riley.

But here's a bit of what I was talking about. Over the month of December I participated in Reverb10, a month's worth of questions designed to

reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead.

which makes it sound all neat and pretty and like someone with a beautiful handmade journal and a fountain pen, calmly noting down significant events from the last year, in tidy but elegant handwriting.

That's not what I did.

Read about what I did instead...

[Kate Jones]

It was! In that painful 'it'll be really great when I can stop leaning over the toilet' kind of way. Okay, that was gross, but kinda accurate, too.

 

Ning groups are kinda hard to keep community going in -- I'm not sure why, but I've belonged to a lot, and there are only a couple that have really managed it. You might want to check out some of the things Jill's doing over at the Creative Cafe, though. She features a lot of people's posts and pictures, and runs a monthly contest for people to supply the background picture for the site.

 

She'll also do contests for whoever posts the most in a month, or she'll give people a topic to write on and a week to write about it.

 

She gives away cash prizes -- small ones, like maybe ten bucks, that she gets from advertising, but I really don't know that that's even necessary; I think people would enter contests just for the joy of winning.

 

I've also found that, at least for me, I'm much more likely to follow a  'check out this post' message than a 'check out this person's page' one. I guess because the blog post will have a topic that might intrigue me, and that's worth the click.

 

...hmm, let's see. Another site I'm on does a member of the month profile, which is kinda fun, and they also announce when it's someone's birthday.

 

Wow, I guess I did have a bunch of ideas! Hope some of them are useful?

 

And wow, thanks for featuring my post!

[WarMouse -Manager-]

I just got done reading that, and yes, it was chock full of raw upfront emotion. I give you mad kudos for conquering your fear and writing what you had to say! I bet it sure was cathartic! I finally got a chance to sit down in December and begin work on a graphite drawing, I had forgotten how relaxing and therapeutic it was. I imagine the process of patiently stirring the soap would be soothing too.

I'm glad to hear you have found a sense of community in the SCA! What do you think we could do to bring more of a sense of community here to TWTW?