Russ Hutto posted my after-Mount Hermon debriefing on the Our Creative Community website last week as a three part series.

Here it is for you all! I will post the other two next week.

PART 1: BLOGGING TO WRITING

Last spring I was a virgin writer’s conference attendee.

In 2008, I came green and nervous with only one friend. When someone asked me what I wrote (as everyone does at a writer’s conference) I stared back and said something like, “Uhhh, I blog.” I was unfocused and worried and tried to defend myself. I just needed to relax and admit I just wanted to learn.

Most grey-haired, legal pad-toting, old-school writers just stared back at me and either asked me what a blog was or asked me how it having one would help launch their historical fiction romance book. The idea of a blog having relevance or value in itself was foreign to them.
So much has changed since last spring.

I still blog. It’s the 300-word-a-day discipline that Anne Lamott asks writers to do. Sometimes my blog posts are much shorter or longer than 300 words, but since last year’s conference, I’ve learned so much about writing and about friendship.

The blogging has become less of my PRIMARY writing and more of my PRACTICE writing.

In the year between I’ve entered some writing contests, submitted several article for publication, and gotten paid to write some website copy for a friend. I took what I learned last year, swirled it in with the chaos and busyness of my life as a mother and tried to do as much as I could. Aside from the website copy, I have yet to get a byline, but I am convinced I am a better writer today because of the discipline of blogging.

I’m not a virgin anymore.

I found myself at Mount Hermon this year with a collection of friends from last year and in between, with a new confidence and new answers for the “What do you write” questions at every meal.

I write. I love to write. And I know why I’m here: to hone the gift God has given me.