RSS Feed

Category Archives: blogging

Poetry as Journaling

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Jackie

One of the unexpected side benefits of my poem-a-day month has been that I have found myself using the poem prompts almost as I would journal prompts. You can look back over the 22 poems I’ve written (yes, I’m a little behind) and get a pretty good sense of my emotional state in the past few weeks, the days when I’ve been down and the days when I’ve been up.

Blogging has been a wonderful tool and definitely made me a better writer, but for me, it’s never been a confessional-style journaling tool. I’m not a blood-and-guts kind of blogger, preferring to save my most revealing moments for longer-form work. I’ve published poems and essays about my life, but that’s not what blogging has ever been about for me, even though I knew it would limit me as far as popularity. I don’t see this as “emotionally shut down,” but simply as self-awareness about what I want blogging to be, and how I want to function as a writer. I want you, my readers, to feel like you know me, but not like you know all of me.

So the poems I’ve been writing, which are all attempts to capture certain moments or emotions, have really been valuable to me, personally and as a writer. As a poet, I like some of what I’m coming up with, but even more, I’m finding some of that release that every diarist knows, when we hit upon the exact right word that expresses what we’re feeling, and our soul feels a little lighter. It’s a nice combination, and I’m trying to think of ways to keep it going after my month is over. I know Poetic Asides does a Wednesday Poetry Prompt, and I’m wondering what else I might be able to find.

Related articles

6 Comments

Posted in blogging, poetry, writing and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Getting Drafty

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Jackie

So far in April, I’ve written sixteen poems, following the prompts given at Poetic Asides for the 2012 Poem-A-Day Challenge, and including an additional tanka challenge.

Now, have I written one each day? No, there have definitely been points where I lagged behind and then caught up, drafting several poems in a day. I’ve got one to go right now, actually, a prompt from a few days ago involving the idea of shadows and shade.

Have I written sixteen good poems? Definitely not; most are first drafts, and some I knew were not very good, even as I wrote them down.

So what is the value, then, of a challenge like this? I would say part of the value is that you push yourself to pile up a lot of shitty first drafts, as Anne Lamott wrote in her wonderful book on writing, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (please buy a copy of that if you don’t already have it, whether you use my link or not). The value of the shitty first draft is overcoming procrastination and perfectionism and getting something down on paper without worrying about whether it’s good yet or not. According to Lamott, every good writer has to do these drafts before you get to the good drafts, and I think I’m not alone in finding this reassuring. There’s a version of this sentiment at work in National Novel Writing Month as well, where they value “enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft” and say, “Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.”

Will I revise each and every one of these drafts further? No, probably not. But I can tell already that some of them have potential as ideas, and I know also that some of them have some good lines, or at least the germ of a good line, and any poet knows the value of one great line.

I think that once I’m done this challenge, I’ll have some good candidates for further revision, and some recoverable lines that I’ll plant in new poems. But more importantly, I’ll have gained some momentum through carving out time to regularly engage the poetic gear of my writer’s mind, and that will surely benefit me.

3 Comments

Posted in daily blog challenges, poetry, writing and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Writing on Values

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Jackie
Обкладинка книги "Над прірвою у житі"

Image via Wikipedia

As any teacher knows, the best professional development either introduces us to a new idea/text or gives us an easily implementable classroom idea or assignment. I’ve had great luck over the years using teacher-bloggers as my own personal learning network, and a recent interaction with That Writing Lady is a great example.

TWL stopped by my blog recently and left a comment, and as usual, I returned the visit to find her blog. The entry that caught my attention was one titled A 1-Hour Assignment that Stops Kids from Failing–great title, right? Upon reading further, I found the prompt really inspiring for use with my current unit on The Catcher in the Rye. Holden is obsessed with honesty throughout the book, one of the values listed in TWL’s example, and I thought it might be interesting for my students to reflect on their own values while also getting some practice with personal essay writing.

Here’s the prompt I came up with, adapted from TWL, and gave to my students:

Part of Holden’s struggle in The Catcher in the Rye is that he sees examples of cruelty and insincerity all around him, and cannot understand why people treat each other this way. While he himself is also flawed, Holden’s obsession with morals and values is part of what makes him distinctive as a character, and his inability to reconcile how people should behave and how they actually do contributes to his growing instability in the book.

What is an important value that you have? (Examples of values: honesty, compassion, kindness, teamwork, self-respect, faith, perseverance, loyalty, forgiveness, leadership, patience, creativity, service). Why do you think that this value is important? Be specific and detailed; give examples of how and when you think people should demonstrate this value, or use stories from your own life to illustrate the importance of this value or how it has affected you. You may use “I” when writing to describe your own beliefs.

This writing will be graded, both for your use of detail and for sentence construction, organization and grammar, so leave yourself some time to review your work before submission. Brainstorming for a few minutes and making a rough outline would also be good uses of your time. You will have 50 minutes to write.

I’ve gotten the first batch back so far and I’m so pleased I tried this out! Once again, my teacher-blogger PLN really delivered, and I’m hoping someone may benefit from this entry as well, fueling the fire of virtual collaboration. Thanks again, TWL!

Related articles

1 Comment

Posted in blogging, education, teaching, technology and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Blogiversary

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Jackie
WordPress Administration

Image via Wikipedia

Like Anjali, I recently passed my 500 post milestone for this blog, which I first posted in on July 12, 2007. That also means that my blog will turn five this summer, the same year that my children and my marriage turn ten.

That first month, I had stopped posting in an old personal blog I maintained primarily to keep in touch with family and friends, back in the old pre-Facebook days and started this shiny new blog, though not yet under my own name. It was my first time using WordPress, and I had decided to make myself a blog/website where I could host the writing clips I was slowly but surely amassing. Like Anjali, I wanted a blog that was much more about myself as a writer than as a mother. I was starting to think more about my voice as a writer and my online presence, and I wanted to start fresh.

Now, looking back, I think this blog made another shift that paralleled my career shifting, as I moved from a writer who taught adjunct classes to a teacher who tries to make time for writing. I still post about wonderful lovely girls, but the focus of my professional and creative life has shifted, and so has my blog.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: maintaining the blogging habit has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in the past five years, as a writer and in terms of personal growth and health.  I simply can’t imagine my life without it.

Thanks so much for coming along on this journey with me; I hope you’ll stick around for the next five years.

Related articles

3 Comments

Posted in blogging, writing and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Jumpstarting My Writing

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Jackie
The keyboard of the Malling-Hansen writing bal...

Image via Wikipedia

As important as writing is to me, and as central as it is to my identity and conception of myself, when something has to drop from my daily juggling act, too often, it’s writing. So for 2012, I’m determined to jumpstart my trajectory as a writer and poet. This is a broader goal, not a concrete one, which means I need to think creatively about how to accomplish it and what that might look like, and what the steps toward success might be.

Thanks to my poet friend Christine Stewart, I’ve got some specific ways to get started on reinvigorating my writing routines. As always, Chris has a pile of fun, creative and reflective ways to start thinking about this, so I’m feeling inspired to get started. Right now, I’m thinking my theme will be “commitment,” in line with my determination to shuffle writing higher on my priority list as often as I can.

Another interesting exercise I’m planning to try is inspired by this post of Penelope Trunk’s on things she wishes she had written, and what that told her not only about her dreams for her writing career, but about the accompanying emotions each evoked in her. As provocative and disturbing as Trunk can often be, I also find her writing to frequently be insightful and inspiring, and this entry was a great example. I often think I’d like to have written some of the many amazing Dear Sugar columns, for example (the one on your invisible inner terrible someone blows me away every time I read it), but I don’t aspire to being an advice columnist, per se, so what is it exactly about Sugar’s writing that I’d like to emulate? I think it’s not only her eloquence, but her candor and compassion, so how can I incorporate those threads into my work?

Finally, I sat down and drafted a list of specific writing goals for the year, which I’ll share in an upcoming post.  In the past, I made lists of broader goals, but I didn’t find those to be motivating as I would like, so I’m working on a specific list, as those seem to be more effective for me.

Related articles

2 Comments

Posted in blogging, calls for submissions, personal goals, poetry, writing and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Twitter, One Year Later

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Jackie
Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

A year ago, I succumbed to my curiosity and joined Twitter, despite deciding six months previously that it wasn’t for me. Since then, I’ve tweeted over 800 times and follow more than 110 people, and have over 50 followers myself, which are tiny numbers in the grand scheme of things, but also show, I think, that I must have gotten some value out of it in that year.

I thought I would end up sending a bunch of links and things there, but ultimately, I still send most of that to FB, where I get more responses and communal dialogue. I publicize my blog entries there, but I think FB is a bigger referrer still.

As part of making my overall screen time more purposeful, as well as eliminating my biggest online time-sucks, I am looking closely at areas where I can cut down.

My questions about Twitter:

What do I like about it?

keeping in touch with friends who use it a lot, informal one-to-one conversations, live-tweeting events like the Republican debates, useful links, keeping up with West Wing characters!

What is not enjoyable about it?

It’s fairly addictive in the same way that Facebook is for me, because it’s almost a guarantee that every time I check it, there will be something new to look at, making it a very easy distraction. Luckily, like FB, it’s blocked while I am at school, but unluckily, that means it’s one of my biggest time-sucks while here at home, which I’m trying to eliminate.

Am I ready to make it public? How would that benefit me?

Not being public means I’m not part of bigger conversations, which sometimes I think I’d like to be, and also not being public means it’s the only corner of the Internet where I don’t have that accountability that I prize everywhere else. Before I made it public, I’d have to go through and carefully edit my previous Tweets, which would be tedious, as there are over 800 of them (also, are Tweets ever really deleted? Is anything?).

I think it’s useful enough to stay invested, but I think making myself more accountable for how I use it would be healthier too.

Related articles

2 Comments

Posted in blogging, conversations, media mentions, technology, writing and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2011 in review

Posted on January 1, 2012 by Jackie

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

1 Comment

Posted in blogging, writing. Bookmark the permalink.

Cooking with Pioneer Woman: Pizza Crust

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Jackie
Pizza 1 bg

Image via Wikipedia (not my hands)

This weekend, we tackled our first recipe from my self-imposed Cooking with Pioneer Woman challenge. I say “we” because it ended up being a team effort, with my husband and Lucy both pitching in with me to make dinner for us all the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

For this first leap, I chose PW’s recipe for plain pizza crust, which is indeed a simple recipe, but includes something of which I am still very wary: yeast. I’ve had great luck with a focaccia recipe recently, but yeast is still intimidating, with the temperature, the foaming, the rising and doubling. Scary. We teamed the crust recipe with this easy pizza sauce from one of my favorite new websites, Foodie Parent. My husband stepped in to simmer and season the sauce and grate the cheese for the pizza; we ended up making a three-cheese and pepperoni version, with extra sharp cheddar, fresh mozzarella and parmesan. Lucy was a big help with the crust and also helped taste the sauce.

So, how did it go? Well, I think I messed it up a little; possibly my water was not warm enough so the yeast didn’t totally activate, or I cooled it at the wrong period (the recipe recommends leaving it in the fridge to “age”). Also, I left it thicker, because Lucy begged me, and the recipe is supposed to make two thin, chewy crusts; however, since I don’t think mine rose properly, I don’t think we could have gotten two crusts out of it. The end result was breadier that I think it’s designed to be.

Luckily, I was the only one who cared–everyone LOVED this pizza, and I will definitely be trying it again. I’m excited to try a BBQ chicken version, and maybe even PW’s favorite potato-leek. It’s fairly typical for PW recipes also; it doesn’t need fancy equipment and is not adventurous as far as taste. Instead, it’s relatively simple and versatile, with a fairly short prep time, which is helpful for someone feeding more than one palate in a limited amount of time.

Related articles

4 Comments

Posted in blogging, cooking and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Cooking with PW: Step One

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Jackie
Making The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

Image by CC Chapman via Flickr

So I went through the Pioneer Woman cookbook last night, getting ready to plan my challenge and made a three-column list: recipes I’ve made before, recipes I won’t want to eat, and recipes I will want to eat. I figure the recipes I’ve made before don’t NEED to be made again unless I feel like it, and the recipes I don’t want to eat will be good for either having a party, bringing to a party, or making for my husband (like the breakfast burritos, which I think he will love).

The totals are as follows:

Recipes I’ve made before: nine

Recipes I won’t want to eat: nineteen

Recipes I want to eat: twenty-eight

I think that at some point during this challenge, we’ll have a Tex-Mex night and invite some friends over, because that would take care of migas, sangria, pico de gallo, guacamole, Huevos de Hyacinth, chili and enchiladas (I might sub in these white chicken enchiladas, depending). Just to be clear, it’s not that I don’t like Tex-Mex food, it’s just that it’s often spicier than I can really handle, so I can’t have lots of leftovers hanging around. I think the perfect dessert for that party will be sopapilla cheesecake pie, which was a big hit at the tamale party.

I think also I might have a drinks-and-bites party, because that would take care of hot artichoke dip, olive bread, BBQ Jalapeno poppers, and burgundy mushrooms. That would be a good football menu too, so if you’re in the Baltimore area, invite us over to watch a game and I’ll bring some of these treats!  There’s also The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake Ever, which seems perfect for a party, along with the prune cake, which has fascinated me since I first saw the recipe posted.

The more I think about this challenge, the more excited I am about it. The inspiration for parties is always welcome, and at least one of those menus would be a fun addition to the winter holiday season. Having new inspiration for main dishes is also exciting; I have no shortage of recipes, but with so many choices, I often default to the easiest or most familiar option. I think the focus of this challenge will help me find some new favorites and stretch my cooking skills; my chopping skills will certainly be stronger by the end of it.  I’ll also finally tackle the legendary Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls, which are somewhat intimidating but will be very satisfying to cross off the list.

Next step: figuring out what I want to cook first!

Related articles

3 Comments

Posted in blogging, cooking, personal goals and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Cooking With Pioneer Woman

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Jackie
Cover of "The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipe...

Cover via Amazon

I’ve been a huge fan of The Pioneer Woman for years, and one of the biggest appeals for me has always been her cooking section, the source of many of my favorite recipes, from Twice-Baked Potatoes to French Breakfast Puffs. I like the hearty American style of most of her recipes, but even more importantly, I LOVE the amount of clear and detailed pictures she includes with each recipes, and her general “You can do it!” tone.  So when I first bought The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl, I had grand intentions of trying every single recipe in the book, and while I have tried a good handful, I have not made it through the whole book.

So when I realized that her next cookbook comes out in March, I knew that the time had come.

My mission: to cook every recipe in the first PW cookbook before the second PW cookbook comes out.

Now, this is no Julia and Julia style adventure, because PW’s book is not nearly that large and I’m not a disgruntled secretary looking for my life’s purpose. But I am a blogger looking for inspiration and more food-related posts, who also has to make dinner every day and is trying to cook more meals as opposed to “assembling” or re-heating them, and so I think this will perfectly fit the bill. I also think this is easily accomplish-able in the next four months or so, especially given that I’ll be able to knock out some of these recipes over the holiday break and already like the idea of having a Pioneer Woman Cooks party, where the menu features the recipes I need to make but probably won’t love (like her Olive Cheese Bread or Penne a la Betsy).

I feel the need to say here also that if you’re looking for a more gourmet-style cook-a-long, you might be better off with Tuesdays with Dorie or French Fridays with Dorie or even the International Incident Party. You could also follow Tasty Trix, one of my favorite food bloggers who has participated in all three, as well as many other tasty challenges.

However, if you’re a PW fan or even just a comfort-food fan, feel free to follow along!

Related articles

7 Comments

Posted in authors, blogging, book reviews, cooking, personal goals and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
← Older Posts
→
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 488 other followers