Cathy C. Hall Writes

It’s the start of the new year and you’d like to rev up your brain and start writing, right? You might want to begin with Shannon Abercrombie’s challenge:

Whether you’ve penned children’s books or dashed off a middle grade novel or tackled a young adult novel, here’s something you can sink your writing teeth into: Start The Year Off Write, twenty-one days of writing prompts and esteemed authors and illustrators sharing their insights. And prizes! LOTS of prizes! (And yes, I know it’s already started, but January 5th was just a few days ago. YOU CAN DO THIS. Um…I’m not sure I can do this because I’m already signed on for this next challenge…)

Meg Miller’s planned a week-long slate of revision stuff, including blog posts and videos and prizes! LOTS of prizes! ReViMo is specifically geared to picture book writers, so if you’ve ever participated in Picture Book Idea Month and have a slew of dusty drafts, here’s a great opportunity to shine ’em up. And you’ll notice that it starts Sunday. Gosh, that’s four whole days to get your little ducky picture book drafts in a row. You’ll need a couple polished-up picture books if you’re interested in this next challenge:

It’s the 12 x 12 challenge over at Julie Hedlund’s, where picture book writers can sign up for one of three levels (there’s a fee for each level) for a year-long dose of writing inspiration, advice, and prizes! LOTS of prizes! Registration continues for quite a while, so you have time to revise, work on writing prompts and really get your writing engines revved up before the fun begins.

There are SO many authors and illustrators and writers in the children’s community who give back with challenges and contests and advice and support. It’s amazing and generous and I so appreciate the time and effort it takes to coordinate these and all the other surprises that these and other writers have in store in 2014. I love to participate in these challenges, love meeting other writers, love how my writing improves along the way.

And yeah, I can’t lie. I love those prizes. LOTS of prizes.

(Know of a writing challenge? For essay writers or short story writers? Novelists or poets? Do tell–and don’t forget to mention the prizes!)

Before I considered what I wanted to accomplish in 2014, I took a look back to assess 2013, to see what I’d accomplished. And friends, I had a moment.

It was not a good moment. What, I said (probably “screamed” would be a more accurate word choice), happened here? Because not a whole lot, in fact, did happen in my own little writing world. There had to be a reason, I figured, and it wasn’t long before I figured it out.

Facebook. I shouted to the heavens, with my arm upraised, gripping blank pages. FACEBOOK!! (It was an Oscar worthy moment.)

Facebook itself is not a bad thing. I rather like keeping up with friends and seeing pics of the family. I enjoy a little social networking as much as the next guy. But I’m a writer and I have this ridiculously overdeveloped curiosity. So if a friend posts a link to “The Six Worst Crimes in History That Happened in January”…well, I have to stop and read that juicy tidbit. It’ll only take a few minutes.

But at the end of that article, I find a link to “Serial Killers of the Renaissance–Who Knew?” and I click on that link, too, because come on, people, it’s the Renaissance. And I gobble up a few more minutes of my writing time.

Many of my writer friends are on Facebook, too, and they share the most interesting links about writing (click!) or something in their field of interest (click!) or just the most absolutely fascinating random subject ever (click! click! click!). Well, you can see where this is going.

Unfortunately, I did not until the end of the year. That’s when I realized I’d spent a ton of time clicking and not so much on writing. And though I now know an awful lot about Famous Horror Movie Scenes that Landed on the Cutting Room Floor not to mention Famous Duels and How They Backfired, I do not, as far as actual words-on-paper, have much to show for the year.

So for the first week of 2014, I limited myself to a daily seven minutes on Facebook. Seven minutes to quickly scan, to check on messages. And by January 5th, I’d submitted two pieces of writing.

I love you, interesting, fascinating, glorious links. But this little writer has learned her lesson.

(How about you? How do you tame Facebook? Inquiring and curious writers want to know!)