Redesigning My Writer's Crate

From Cheryl's Writing Crate

This past weekend was devoted to an entire fall housecleaning mission--one that started at sundown Friday evening and went well into the wee hours of Monday morn!  When one of these intense decluttering, deep cleaning fetishes strike it completely consumes me, and the only way for me to survive it is to simply get into the zone and just go with it.

Although I usually have a bit of help around the house throughout the week from my 6 children that still live at home, when I'm in the midst of a full-fledged cleaning rampage like this, they know it's best to steer clear and let me have at it without any interruptions.  And because they fear for what I might ask them to do (scrubbing the fireplace tiles is not high on anyone's list in this family!) it's usually never a problem to get the house to myself for a couple of days.

As I whirred about my seemingly endless list of tasks (happily so, I might add, because believe it or not, these deep cleanings are therapeutic for me) I stopped and took a good, hard look at my sacred space that we here at this blog refer to as our "Writing Crate".

Our mission on the homepage of The Writer's Crate blog states "Live a writer’s life. Take yourself seriously. Set up a Writer’s Crate—a nook, a corner, or a room dedicated to writing filled with items that inspire you—then sit there and write every day."   We launched our blog in September of 2012--two years later, I still enjoy reading our mission on a weekly basis because it reminds me of how important it is to feed my muse and write as often as possible especially when my busy life tries to get in the way of that.

Even when I don't have the amount of time I'd like to sneak away and spill my gazillion ideas onto paper, I usually have a few minutes (make that seconds) to sit quietly in my very own corner of the world, my writer's crate, and just daydream a little bit (usually about the novels I'm going to write as soon as the last dish is cleaned or the last load of laundry is folded and put away).

It's this special sanctuary that I find comfort, inspiration, passion, and usually direction where my writing life is concerned.  But like other rooms in my home, I tend to get bored if the layout, color scheme, and overall design remain the same for too long. So as I tore about doing all that cleaning and reorganizing last weekend, I realized that my writer's crate needed a bit of freshening up.

Because I am working full-time now, my mind is even more busy than I ever thought possible, so I've really been focusing on simplifying as much in my life as I can.  With that theme in mind, I realized that my writer's crate had gotten a bit cluttered and wasn't as orderly or inspiring as it was when I first created it a couple of years ago so I decided it was definitely time to make some changes.

My First Writer's Crate

It didn't take much to redesign my precious, new writing haven.  I traded my writing armoir (my daughter scored it for her new mini art-studio) which was loaded with books, journals, sticky notes, quotes, and ongoing project lists to a smaller, simpler desk that I painted in a pale turquoise.  I keep a simple vase on it (because I love it, plain and simple) as well as a reading lamp and that's it!  I have enough room for my laptop or one of my journals and the two drawers hold my favorite pens and writing books.  

My Fresh, Simple Writer's Crate Makeover

Everything else has been placed back on my favorite bookshelves or in my little office that I use for bookkeeping and other household tasks. When I need something during a writing session, I make sure I have it available, but now that I've been writing in my new nook, I'm finding I have everything I need, just a clean and quiet space to let my thoughts flow without the dozens of distractions I used to have all around me.

It's only been a short period of time that I've been working from my revamped writer's crate, but the change in scenery and the set up of this new space has already shifted my attitude and production immensely. Not only did my entire house get a thorough cleaning and makeover, but my passion to write did as well, and once again I get excited to find those very important snippets of time to sneak off and do what I love most--get creative in my beloved and newly refreshed writer's crate.

Have you taken an inventory of your writing space lately?  If you could create the perfect writer's retreat, where in your home (or elsewhere) would it be?

Brown-Nosing to Increase Your Writer's Social Media Presence

From Cheryl's Writing Crate

I have a small confession--I'm a social media junkie.  There--I said it!  To those closest to me, this is of absolutely no surprise.  As the passionate mother of eight kids, I openly admit that I love posting, tweeting, and pinning family related items (respecting their privacy on sensitive topics!) that I either think will be of interest to my friends and followers or just as importantly ideas and thoughts that I feel are interesting and I simply want to share.

As a writer, blogger and professional pod caster, I wholeheartedly believe that social media can benefit my craft in a multitude of ways, primarily offering exposure of my work to hundreds and many times thousands of audience members that I wouldn't otherwise meet.

Social media, however, isn't within everyone's comfort zone, and that's perfectly fine.  The beauty of these tools is that individuals can use them to the fullest of their potential or limit how often they reach out to others on line and in some cases, choose not to go this route at all.

For someone like myself who desires to mingle with these social media avenues on a regular basis for professional reasons, I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is to consistently stay active so that my followers can count on regular content and updates (regardless of how in depth they are).  

This not only requires commitment on my part, but it's also imperative to find new ways to interact with existing followers and continually attract new ones.  To me, one of the most enjoyable aspects of facebook, Twitter and Pinterst is the engaging banter that takes place after I post, tweet or pin a thought, upload an article or ask for feedback on a particular topic of interest or one that is trending such as the popular ALS ice bucket challenge.  You never know who will respond or what inspiring ideas you will glean from this type of interaction.

Because I am always looking for ways to reach out and attract new followers, I enjoy reading posts from fellow social media junkies about this subject.  Recently, I read a clever article from Randy Ross called Marketing for Writers:  3 Tricks for Facebook, Twitter, Meetup which offered some quick and easy tips to promote social media sites.

The article offered ways to brown-nose your way into getting more followers and while that may sound a bit pathetic in theory, I found his ideas to be practical and definitely worth giving a shot.

If you are looking for ways to increase the traffic to your social media sites, I highly recommend you click on the link above and read Ross's article for yourself.  If you like what you read, you can give his tactic a try and do a little brown-nosing of your own by leaving a comment or two on this blog!  

Happy Anniversary Writer's Crate!

From Cheryl's Writing Crate

It's with great appreciation and joy that I write these words--"Happy Anniversary Writer's Crate"!  In essence I'm wishing both myself (a little pat on the back never hurts every now and again) and my inspiring blogging partner, Kate, these anniversary wishes, but for those of you who have followed us on this insightful, thought-provoking and above all enjoyable one-year blogging milestone, it's your anniversary as well!

I can still remember the very day that Kate and I almost "fell into" this idea to blog.  We were returning home from one of our infamous 'Literary Adventures' or LA's as we like to refer to them, and the conversation was bouncing back and forth to different authors we were reading, the exciting new authors we were meeting (hey, we take our LA's very seriously!), our goals of both writing and publishing our own earth-shattering novels (which we will both do!), and one of our common loves in life--our dogs.  

I believe I was sharing my housebreaking woes when the discussion turned to dogs because my compassionate daughter who now lives in NYC wanted to make sure a sweet, utterly adorable, cuddly, did I mention adorable, Pomeranian puppy born to a litter from someone she worked with would find a loving home.  Need I say more, that sweet puppy, Gracie, came to join our family of 10, well really 11, because our 9th child is our black lab, Molly, who is now 10 years old.  So Kate, also an avid dog lover with two dogs of her own and I started discussing the crating process for housebreaking puppies and just like that, a light bulb moment occurred and we began chuckling that if we as writers had a crate to snuggle into when we wanted to get some serious writing done, we'd be authors in no time.  

And with that, The Writer's Crate blog idea was born and after a few short months of researching how to start a blog from scratch we launched our first post, written by Kate, on Labor Day in 2012.  My first post followed several days later and since that very first week, both Kate and I are proud to say we have not missed a single post!    Kate posts every Monday, and I post every Thursday.  Looking back over the past year, the feeling of accomplishment is one I don't take lightly.  Both Kate and I have had some personal struggles during our first year of blogging, but truthfully, if it weren't for either of our intense passion (Kate, I hope it was alright to speak on your behalf on this topic :) ) and love of writing, I don't think we would've coped as well as we have.

My "new vision" for my Writer's Crate

I hope you all had a chance to read Kate's anniversary blog post, because not only was it heartfelt, but it was chock full of great tips on blogging.  I want to take a moment to thank you, Kate, for being such a terrific blogging partner.  You have helped make this journey not only fun, but such a great learning experience as well.  I look forward  to each and every post of yours and am continually inspired by your thoughts.

One of my favorite posts this past year was 7 Tips on Making Your Blog a Positive Experience.  One of the benefits of blogging is having published content to re read and review.  That, of course, is just one of many pluses of starting and keeping a blog so I invite you to continue this journey with Kate and I so you can read about  the many other benefits that we are eager to share with you.

Have you ever dreamed of starting your own blog?  What's stopping you?