Yes I Disappeared...

Confessions From An Invisible Writer.

Okay, so I didn't literally disappear. No magic rings or invisibility capes for me. Sorry about the fakey attempt to intrique my readers...which I'm 99.999% certain didn't work anyway.

But I have certainly been absent from this blog for months.

Sorry about that too.

But lets be honest. It wasn't much of a loss. This blog has devolved into a dull "Hey look I published a short story you should buy it and by the way this is what I did yesterday" accounting of things. Who wants to read that?

Well. Alright, so I'm always interested when writers that I love do that on their blogs. So I won't bash myself.

But still we need something more interesting here.

And this summer has been one with some amount of soul searching for me. At least as far as writing and art and creativety and What Shall I Do With My Talents And Life In General goes.

I've been doing a course from Kevin Kaiser that is helping me "revise" my online presence...for lack of a better description of what I'm trying to do. It's a course for online creative entrepreneurs anyway ("Did you here that?" My Muse just said wonderingly. "Creative Entrepreneurs. That's what we are!").  Its very simple and straightforward and starts with the basics. So I've just been focusing on that (especially as I've been rather sickly this month and didn't feel like doing much else with my brain...). And I finally think I know where I want to go with this blog and everything.

SOOOO.

A Few Promises From Me:

• I, Leslie Marie Dawson, hereby promise to write something funny and interesting here at least once a week (I've been reading essays and short stories by A.A. Milne lately. That could account for my desire to write dry-witted nonfiction pieces...)


• I also promise to send out a weekly email full of links to interesting things I've collected from the internet that week.


• And I promise to write at least fifteen minutes a day on stories I would like to share with you. The idea is to get used to the fifteen minutes and increase it as I go along...


• I also promise to create and share more art here on the blog (any art actually. As I haven't shared any so far...). I know, to follow through on this I should make a deadline of some kind. But I'm trying to focus on writing for now. So we shall say one piece of art a month...and see if I manage to stick to it.

And that's about it for now.

So, now to brainstorm what that first witty blog post shall be about. Hmm...

See you next week!

May Goals and Updates

It seems I have neglected the blog for a month but I haven't been idle. I've set some writing goals. And I realize I need to make some changes--to this website, to the stories I'm publishing etc. Try new things and all that.

My main goal this month is rewriting the Snarktales. Yes, even the two I've published. Everything gets a new look. I'm excited about this and hopefully I'll finish by the end of the month.

I've also been participating in Story a Day May. The name is self explanatory. You don't technically have to write a new story each day, but can set whatever goal you choose. I decided to try a new story every day though. What I've discovered is that, unless I plan microfiction--a Twitter fiction series, a drabble, or anything under a page or two--I generally can't finish the story. But at least I'm writing super short fiction, finding new plots, and having fun. And I haven't missed writing something daily all month!

I have one other project going. I asked three friends to proofread the Cinderella Snarktale back in February. As a thank you, I'm creating a piece of artwork for each of them--characters from their own fiction. This is a ton of fun. Have been scouring Deviant Art for free stock and reference photos, and creating inspirational Pinterest boards (which said friends can pin too, of course). Right now, I've just got some quick pencil sketches down.

And that's about it! The changes to the published stories and this blog will, hopefully, take place next month. :)