Category — Prompt-ly

The Prompt-ly listserv is about 24 hours old, and it already rocks.  Fine, the listserv is sort of like a newborn colt, shakily getting to her feet as people shyly get to know each other.  But I can tell that it has the potential to rock and fully expect that within the next two weeks, the prompts and post ideas will be flying like popcorn.

(That is, if you like popcorn.  If you are anti-popcorn, please come up with another analogy in your head.)

I imagine the list like an enormous Formica table at a Starbucks (sans the one wobbly leg that is making your coffee spill all over the surface), with an infinite amount of chairs, and people are just saying interesting things.  They’re talking about things they read and places they’ve been and stuff they’ve noticed.  And your mind just wanders during the discussion, snatching up writing ideas.

I’m finishing up Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which is a massively fun read.  I’ll have more to say about it when I hit the final page (and yes, I have been taking notes because I intend to write a blog post!), but one of the ideas he throws out there is that part of the success equation is the work you put in.  A lot of the success equation is out of your control such as circumstances of your birth or what you were taught at a formative age, but that idea of work is entirely within your control.

The number he comes up with for success is 10,000 hours.  You need to put in 10,000 hours of work in order to be in a position where you become an expert.  The Beatles put in over 10,000 hours of play time before they hit it big; Bill Gates put in 10,000 hours of programming before he was in a position to form Microsoft.

Of course most (any?) successful bloggers haven’t put in 10,000 hours, but I think the idea still holds.  If you want to be a good writer, you need to write.  You need to take whatever writing time you can and write whatever you can.  To warm up for six hours of book writing, I start by writing blog posts (I write to warm up so I can… write).  I jot down words on post-it notes that appeal to me.  I have an idea notebook where I dump ideas.  I read a shitload — both books and blogs.

I may only get 15 minutes a day to write sometimes.  But I grab those 15 minutes and try to make them count rather than dismissing them.  15 minutes of writing still has worth.

And I don’t always post what I write.  I have 172 drafts that I’ve saved.  I have several hundred posts that I’ve written and dumped.  Sometimes, it just about the act of writing.

And that is the way you become a better writer — simply by doing it.  Writing begets writing: do it enough and you’ll have time to work on your book and work on a post because your mind will be in shape.  It’s sort of like running.  If you run once a week, you’ll find every run difficult.  If you run a bit every day, you’ll soon find that a mile feels like nothing.

So, I hope you join along if you’re looking for discussion and prompts.  Because I’d like to see this list become an infinite coffee table with a diverse group sitting around, chatting so you can pluck ideas out of the air.  And my commitment is to grow it into that over the course of this next year.

Think I’ve found my project for this upcoming year of blogging.  Just in time since my blogoversary is at the end of the month.

You have asked for a kick in the ass, and I am going to provide a kick in the ass.  I’ve been mentally tossing around starting this for a bit, but Lacie’s comment was the tipping point.

I am starting a multi-dimensional online writing project.  It’s going to be a listserv as well as random posts.  And it’s called Prompt-ly.

Wait, you say.  I am already part of an online writing group.  Well, this is not actually an online writing group.  If you want to do that, I think you should join the one at Too Many Fish to Fry called the Pomegranate Society (leave a comment in that post to be added to that online writing workshop).  That’s a place to exchange actual pieces of writing and support each other in publishing efforts.

This is not that.

What Prompt-ly is:

• A listserv with blog prompts and other writing project ideas presented by me as well as other members.  In other words, all members can float out a random question that people can use as a diving board for a post (such as: “what is the scariest thing you’ve ever done?”).  There may be one prompt a day or there may be many.  You pick and choose if you want to use them or delete them.
• A receptacle to pass along hot news stories that you think others might like to write about too [this is the listserv].
• An email list where you can debate hot ideas and see if they’re actually post-worthy [this is the listserv].
• A space to send a blog post url and ask for feedback about a post that didn’t get a lot of comments [this is the listserv].
• A space to say: “crappers, I’m about to post this but want a second opinion before it goes live because I’m worried I may offend people.” [this is the listserv].
• And every once in a while, Prompt-ly will be a blog post that will pass along ideas on publishing news or how-to advice, all coming from authors, publishers, editors, and agents.  I’ll collect up questions and answer them.  Or it will simply be a writing exercise or idea to light a brand new fire under your ass [these are the blog posts].

See, listserv and blog posts.

LISTSERV

You don’t need to join the listserv to participate, BUT I have a feeling that the majority of the information will be passed along in that space vs. here on Stirrup Queens.  This is the group’s homepage:

PROMPT-LY

Just click there if you want to join.  All members will be approved in order to keep spam off the list.  The membership request asks you to provide your blog url if you have one.  You don’t need to have a blog to join since some people will be using the list to work on other writing projects such as books or magazine articles.

The list is open, meaning; the majority of members will probably come from the ALI community simply because I am in the ALI community, and I can keep the list ALI-friendly as the moderator.  But anyone is welcome to join: men, women, young, old, gay, straight, talented, and total bores.  By which I mean that I’ll obviously float IF-related news stories to the list, but I also may float something interesting I read on Jezebel that someone might want to use as a springboard to a blog post.

Here are things that are okay to post on the list:

• Blog post prompts.
• Links to news stories or opinion posts that may spark a blog post idea for another person.
• Whole posts you want an opinion on before you hit publish (not everyone will answer you, but hopefully one or two will give you their opinion).
• A link to your own blog post that you’d like some feedback on.
• Questions about writing or publishing.
• Questions about blogging — from the technical side of things such as which software to use to thoughts about social media sites to worries about commenting etiquette.
• Questions about a hot idea that you want to write about but want some feedback on first.
• Personal writing, publishing, or book news.

Here are things that are not okay to do on the list:

• Berate or belittle someone.
• Offer non-constructive criticism.
• Steal another person’s idea and claim it as your own.
• Spam.
• Only use the list to promote your own work without giving back anything to the community by way of throwing out ideas or giving someone else feedback.  In other words, if you’re sending news about your book to the list, you must also participate in other ways such as answering people’s questions.  It’s a community — help has to flow in all directions.
• This is also not a writing workshop (see the link above to Too Many Fish to Fry if you’re interested in that).

BLOG POSTS

The posts will be infrequent (maybe once a month or every other week).  But if you do have specific writing questions that weren’t answered my DIY MFA series, especially ones about the how-tos of blogging, traffic building, of commenting, send them my way in an email with Prompt-ly in the subject line and I’ll answer it in the next post.

So that’s it.  Prompt-ly.  A fire lit under your ass to get you to write more.  Because the only way to become a good writer is to actually do it.

You in?