Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 32 Comments

The Great 2018 Blog Experiment

Hot Stuff, right here at least once a week in 2018

How’s that for hyperbole? If you’ve been here a while, you’re probably guessing that by great I mean middling and by experiment I mean absolutely nothing scientific. Still, looking at the year’s blogtivities–what you liked*, what you liked less–could help us all achieve blog bliss in 2019. It could happen. But, first, some preliminary stats, because numbers are fun so long as WordPress is doing the crunching.

I published a perfectly round 100 posts in 2018 (not counting this one) to receive 9,736 views from 5,434 visitors. Thank you for being here; without you, I’m a complete narcissist. Likes: 2,515, and my favorite thing in the world: Comments: 924. (Yep, they still count if I’m the one commenting.)

Your Favorite Posts from 2018 (in descending order, based on views)

Your Least Favorite Post from 2018

The Sunshine Blogger Award: Woot (if tardy)! featured my take on 11 probing questions and my nominations of 11 blogs that are totally worth your time. (Bad post timing? Too much in your reading queue? Are we tired of the award posts? What do you think?)

OK, I’m no statistician, but I’m seeing a trend: gimme more writerly guests, you say. I’m so glad you asked! Coming up in early 2019, I will be featuring an interview with Ohio’s Poet Laureate and hopefully one with a small press publisher. Inquiring minds and all…

So, next up on the old arcade Love Meter: Uncontrollable! I can’t picture just what an uncontrollable blog looks like, but you can help me get there. The American Rust Belt is a big place with a lot of worthy lit–stories real and imagined, memoir, poetry and more. Know a Rust Belt writer with a story to tell? Let me know in the comments.

Other bloggish lessons learned in 2018

Share the work of others and you will be recognized (see above). It’s not just about garnering views, comments, and followers–the stuff of stats. It’s about being a good citizen in this writing life, wherever and whatever you write. I’ll never forget the blogger who responded to one of my very first blog posts by saying something along the lines of “blogging isn’t just writing, it’s communicating.” This is two-way street stuff. This is our blog.

Because I truly believe that, I spend a lot of time out on the WordPress Reader scoping out new blogs; I drop comments; and I share what I love. Case in point: WordPress Discover shared their 2018 roundup: A Year of Great Writing: The Most-Read Editors’ Picks of 2018, which is a great list btw, and in conclusion the editors asked for our picks. I didn’t have to think twice before hyping in the comments Ella Ames’ blog Not Enough Middle Fingers (and not just for the name). I was thrilled to maybe send a few bloggers Ella’s way for funny, poignant, deep, and daring writing plus her homegrown illustrations. Know what happened next? My comment drew visitors–and even a few new followers–to my site. (Welcome!) So, let’s all spread the blog love in 2019.

Will next year be the year my writing hits Uncontrollable on the Love Meter? I don’t know. But, together, we can make connections that count for a lot.

All the best to you and yours for a safe, happy, and healthy New Year!

~Rebecca

*Thanks to K.M. Allan and her 2018 Blog Roundup for this post idea

Wanna join me elsewhere on the interwebs? Here’s me at FB and on Twitter @MoonRuark

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 24 Comments

“Do not hoard…”

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.”

Annie Dillard, American author

This felt like appropriate writing advice for the season, so I thought I’d re-post this gem from Annie Dillard today.

Over the past few days, my writing energies have been poured into Christmas cards. (Yep, I still do those.) It’s the one time of year I connect across the many miles with family and friends who don’t do social media (which was me, too, until just a couple years ago).

It’s the one time of year I “give it all”–braggin’ on my boys and sharing declarations of affection, longing, and even shared loss that might feel sappy at any other time.

Which gets me to thinking about something a friend of mine posted (on social media) about not being afraid to speak of those we’ve lost over the holidays. This is my twelfth Christmas after my mom’s death. The cynical and deflecting part of me thinks I could make up a funny song about my grief–to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas…” (Or maybe something along the lines of “Goodly Mom I lost looked out on the feast of (what rhymes with Stephen?)” Instead, I share her stories with my boys, carry on tying the family ties, and speak her name.

“…give it, give it all, give it now.” That seems like good writing–and living–advice, during this and every season.

All the best and sincerest holiday wishes to you and yours,

Rebecca

P.S. Pics from my family’s “Thanksmas” celebration: the obligatory sister and me in the kitchen selfie; a nearby beach looking not at all Christmas-y; and one amazing elf.

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 12 Comments

The Sunshine Blogger Award: Woot (if tardy)!

Thank you to Writer Side of Life for nominating me for this award (ages ago). If you haven’t yet checked out Kim’s blog, please do. There you’ll find engaging posts about books and the writing life, inspirational interviews with New Zealand authors, lessons learned from “dragging” her kids to France for a research excursion–and much more.

So, as I said, I am tardy, actually more than tardy, to my own award presentation. Imagine one of those big show venues, with all the glitz, glamor, and champagne–after it’s stripped down. The place echos with emptiness, and next up for the venue is, I don’t know, the opposite of glamor, maybe a taxidermy show.

Welcome, folks, to my stuffed dead things award presentation. (See what tardiness gets you?)

Award rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog so others can find them.

2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.

3. Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.

4. Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.

5. List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.

My answers:

What is your favourite place in the world? (“Favourite” spelling Kim’s)

I have extolled many of the wonders of my home city of Cleveland, Ohio, here on the blog. For those who don’t know, Cleveland has long been the butt of jokes, and while it might have lost a little of its sheen from its Gilded Age, industry-fed glory, C-town today is where you want to go for sports, arts, outdoors, and popular culture when you’re in the Midwest. List of major attractions here. From the home of the Cleveland Browns (who won yesterday!) to one of  the premiere art museums in the U.S.; and from the Metroparks system to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there’s no place I’d rather be. And…Paris is also nice.

What do you want people to get out of your blog?

I hope my blog helps people come to know and appreciate the literature–poetry, fiction, memoir, and more–coming out of the U.S. Rust Belt, generally, and Ohio specifically.

Cat person or dog person?

Read more

Posted on by Rebecca Moon Ruark · 15 Comments

The Game of (Writing) Life

At historic boardwalk arcade, Marty’s Playland*, in Ocean City, Md, the Crane Digger machines date to the 1940s. But what do games of chance have to do with the writing life?

Yep, It’s All Fun and Games Until December.

It’s pretty arbitrary, really, the turning over of the calendar page to the next month, the next year.

We writers and readers would do better to stay on track to achieve our goals, every day, all year long, rather than make December feel like the last, flash round in a game of Writing Life. Of course, it doesn’t help that this is the time when we round up the year’s favorite reads; I weighed in on one of these myself, here. We log our “win” (or “loss”) at NaNoWriMo, the contest with the aim of churning out 50,000 words in the month of November. We chart our year’s submissions-to-acceptances ratio on Submittable; our agent query stats on Query Tracker. And we plan to do better–and more–next year. As if, in doing all this, we will reach some Writing Life finish line, win the game–and the fortune that goes with it.

Will we win or lose at the Writing Life? Even the Fortune Teller can’t say.

Only, as I’m finding through listening to more experienced writers and authors, there is no finish line. There are stats and figures we can attach to our progress, sure. If you care, my NaNoWriMo “loss” stands at 9,738 words–the start of a new manuscript that is coming along; my 2018 short story submissions-to-acceptances is 29-to-2 (stay tuned for publication news in January); agent query-to-rejections: 4-to-1.

There are book contests and award shows. There are book coaches and pitch wars. Though it can feel like it, the writing life isn’t a game but a life, a way of connecting with the world through the written word.

Vintage arcade games

We can make a game of the writing life. But, if we’re here, we’ve already won.

I have to say I get a little overloaded by all the prescriptions for gratitude this time of year. However, to be living any kind of life that involves art–whether of the literary, visual, or performing variety–in a shared community is an immense blessing. I’m glad we can hash this stuff out together.

So, now it’s your turn. What’s your take on the Game of (Writing) Life? What does your 2019 fortune hold? Maybe even more importantly: skee-ball or pinball?


*On our annual off-season trip to the beach, we had one day of sun and one day of rainy arcade fun. More on Marty’s Playland here.