April 19, 2010

Outlining, guest-posting, and more!

Well hello, blogosphere.

I'm baaaaaaack!

And I had a great week.

I lunched at Panera (my absolute favorite). Went shopping. Watched ROMEO + JULIET. Read HARRY POTTER. Painted my bathroom a light gray.

And got a TON of focused editing done (more about that below).

My No Internet Distractions Week experiment taught me a few things:
  1. I didn't miss Twitter. I don't plan on being as active on Twitter as I was before - I get too much done without it.
  2. I missed Facebook, but I may have cured my addiction. I usually log in several times a day (with several meaning... oh, I dunno... 20?), but since Friday evening I have logged in twice a day (morning/evening). I was gone for 5 days and nothing really happened on there. No need to log in all the time, right?
  3. I missed Blogger (and reading everyone else's blogs) the most, but I also realized that blogging, while helpful, is a huge time-drain, too. When I first started blogging, it was my goal to post twice a week; lately I've been blogging 4 days a week. My new official policy is 2 posts a week, unless I have the time/feel like blogging more.
  4. Without Twitter, Facebook, and Blogger, there's not a whole lot to do on the internet. The stories on MSN and Yahoo! News don't change much during the day. Dear Abby and Annie's Mailbox only come out once a day. I'm proud I didn't succumb to my old TMZ addiction, nor did I resort to playing Pop It! on Pogo.
I want to thank Choco for cross-posting my review of LIFE, AFTER over at in which a girl reads last week. The timing wasn't great, since anyone who clicked on my name from the guest post saw I wasn't blogging all week, but the opportunity surfaced right before I went dark and I didn't think about the fact I wouldn't be around. Lesson learned, right?

Speaking of guest posts, the first 2 weeks of May my brother will be home on block leave before he deploys to Afghanistan, so I will be less active online during that time and am looking for 2-4 people to write guest posts for then. If you are interested, shoot me an email with ideas (or the link to a post you've already written but feel would be a good cross-post/adaptation) and we'll talk.

AND FINALLY.

The fruit of last week's work (part of it, anyway):

An actual outline! Made by me! The person who hates outlining!

I'll blog more about this later. It was hard work, but incredibly helpful.  If you're interested in the method behind this kind of outline, as well as detailed instructions on how to create the storyboard, check out Keli Gwyn's post.

9 comments:

Glenna said...

I never outlined until recently- it's all about finding a process right for you.

But WELCOME BACK. I'm at once glad you've cured your interwebz addiction (you brave soul) and sad, because your posts are fantabulous. ): But writing first! Always writing!

(And a week with Romeo + Juliet is a good week indeed.)

Abby Stevens said...

Why thank you! I've never been called fantabulous before! Your blog was one of the ones I missed reading the most last week!

Abby Stevens said...

PS - I really do love exclamation points, don't I? Elana Johnson blogged about !'s today and then I look at my comment above and every sentence ends with one. Oh well, I suppose I'm enthusiastic. :D

Glenna said...

Creative punctuation, I call it. xD I'm not hyper, I punctuate creatively.

, said...

It's so interesting how you've done the outline after you've written the book! hahha. I wish I could zoom in closer on the picture. Well done!

Kirsten said...

Love the lessons you learned from your week off! I deactivated my own FB account several weeks ago to cure myself of my addiction, and I've been SO much more productive since. Go us! We beat the internet!

Abby Stevens said...

Heidi - I had a bunch of loose ends and gaps that needed filling in, and outlining has really helped point all those problems out one by one rather than just getting overwhelmed and going, "Oh well..." :D

Kirsten - That's awesome! (And brave!) Definitely go us! The internet is a mighty dragon to slay, but once you do, you find - WHOA - I have way more time now! I'm keeping my FB because I enjoy staying in touch with HS friends, but really, I was logging in waaaaay too much before!

Hannah said...

After your lovely comment on my blog I thought I'd pop over and visit you myself!

Congratulations on the editing and also the outline - it looks very impressive and colour co-ordinated! I also think detaching from the internet is a wonderful idea that I'll never have the will-power for. But a girl can dream!

Abby Stevens said...

Thank you, Hannah! It certainly took a lot of time, but was extremely worth it. :-) Good luck with your blog! I think you've got a great writing style, and can't wait to read more.

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