My Writing Workshop Conference*

As teachers of a writing workshop, we're told that one of the best parts of the workshop comes through conferencing with your students. So, as a "new" and learning blogger, I thought I'd conference with myself and figure out how my writing is going so far. The questions in italics are going to be me as the teacher and the response will be me as the student (a little role-playing, if you will :-) )

Margot, tell me about what you're writing. (This is the "research" portion.)
 Well, to be perfectly honest, it's been really hard to write over the past few weeks. I can't name the number of times I've sat down to try to blog and come up with nothing. Absolutely nothing. I've even made a list of topics via "Post-It" on my computer that I'd like to write about, but as of late, they've offered no immediate solution - they just sound boring. And goodness knows that if I don't want to write about it, people probably won't want to read about it, right?
 But the writing I have done has been about what's going on in my life. People have yet to see these because they're posted in the "draft" section of my blog and thus, have yet to be published. I've written about my job, about being married, about all the craziness that's happening between work, school, and my friend's wedding this coming up weekend. Where do people find the time to do all this stuff? Overall though, I'd like to find something that I care about writing about. And I want to make it more interesting - post links, add pictures, etc. But it's so hard to find the time!

Well, that's very interesting. Now since you're life's been so busy as of late, why do you think writing has been so difficult in terms of time? Do you write down ideas as you get them?
 Mostly I write down ideas when I'm on my computer - or if I have my planner. :-) The latter is the most frequent. Maybe if I had a journal I carried around, or a notepad, I might be able to add some more stuff and write it down as it happens, then I won't forget all the ideas that I have.

I think that sounds like a good suggestion. Also, if you're intimidated about writing an entire post, why not shorten the length and write small segments or a "mini"-post? Blogs don't have to be as long as Moby Dick, you know? And if you need other ideas, there's plenty of blog "challenges" that suggest you blog about certain things on certain days - like the 30-day challenge, I think is what it's called.
 Alright. I think I'll make a commitment to try to post something either on my blog or in my journal each day this week. One of my friends is doing something really cool that I like, too: she's posting a picture for each day of the year to document her life. It's so cool and even the "simplest" picture can say so much about your day. I would love to do something like that one day. Maybe I'll try to take pictures and post those with my blogs.

Maybe try to focus on one thing at a time, but I think you've got some good ideas. It's great that you're learning from others around you, too. Try and work on writing in smaller portions but more often this week and we'll talk next Monday.

... and "Scene!" (Okay, dorky theatre reference. I couldn't help it.) To "assess my situation," I'd say that while I really want to write, it's been difficult to find time and ideas that I think are interesting enough. So my self-evaluation on that 1 - 4 scale in our textbook (p.221 if you know what I'm talking about), would probably be between a 2 (just OK) and a 3 (good). When I do write, I think it's fun, but I'm going to challenge myself - thinking of my history in regards to the future - to write more often and in shorter segments so I don't get overwhelmed. So for one week, I'm going to either write and post something here or work on my journal in short segments to see if I get any inspiration from it all.
Okay, I can do this. I think ...

Ready, set, WRITE!