This post continues the month-long series called the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge (#HAWMC), 30 posts in 30 days, created by WEGO Health. I'm so excited I've made it to the halfway point! Honestly, it's been touch and go a few times but this challenge has really pushed me in ways I would never have gone without it. I'm so happy I am participating. I hope you are enjoying these topics and they have given you a chance to see a different side of me!Today's challenge topic is, Writing with Style (writing inspirations); What is your writing style? Do words just flow from your mind to your fingertips? Do you like handwriting first? Do you plan your posts? Title first or last? Where do you write the best?
I don't really think I have any type of formal writing style. Most of the time when a topic comes to me, I usually just start to type whatever comes to mind about the topic. Once I get all the ideas out of my head I try to go back and unscramble them so they make sense to someone other than myself. Often times I leave a lot of blanks that I have to go back and fill in. If I think too hard on a sentence or sentence structure I lose where I was going and what I wanted to say. Next, I read through what I have written again usually rearranging things, adding and erasing others. Then, my secret weapon, my wonderful husband. I pretty much make him read through all of my posts before I publish them. I'm not the greatest with grammar and punctuation so he is my unofficial editor (well I guess now he is official)! Then comes the title and usually a picture of some sort. Those are the finishing touches before I publish my post.
I never handwrite any of my posts first, I am a bit of a perfectionist and I hate my handwriting so it would just make me depressed. I love journals and diaries, I have a bunch of blank ones that are collecting dust and feeling completely ignored because I have never written in them. I've deemed them too pretty to mess up with my ugly handwriting! However, I love the idea of keeping a personal journal or diary and I know it would be therapeutic; it is something I am trying to work on.
I feel my writing voice is most times pretty casual. My hope is that a part of my personality comes out in my writing and I think as time has gone by I'm getting better with that. My husband says I can sometimes get too focused on defining things and end up with posts that read more like dictionary entries than what I'm really wanting to convey to my readers. I just find that sometimes when I am stuck it helps to inspire me to define what I am writing about before getting too deep into a topic.
I always type my posts on my laptop, whenever and wherever I can find the time; as of late it's been when my daughter is taking a nap. Sometimes this can actually help me because I know I have a time limit. Ideally I would write in a space that I find creatively inspiring, which could be a space I have created in my home or another space such as a bookstore, coffee shop or library. When we lived in Fairbanks, I did most of my writing at Barnes and Noble mostly because we didn't have internet in our cabin and they had free wifi. Other reasons I liked Barnes and Noble include its wonderful reading space in front of a giant fireplace, comfortable chairs, the relaxing sound of fire crackling in the background, and the smell of coffee and books; it doesn't get much better than that. I don't miss much about Fairbanks, but I do miss that space.
Where do you find inspiration? What inspires your creative style when you are writing, crafting, woodworking, cooking, gardening, etc?
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