With a novel in progress, professional editor Susanna Sturgis found that she’d been neglecting her blog, Write Through It. So she embarked on — and completed — the A to Z Challenge: she posted every day, minus Sundays, and focused each post on a topic that started with a letter in the alphabet.
The theme of the month? Writing, of course. Here are highlights from her collection of posts, which is a practical resource for writers of all levels.
Actors in a theater and singers and musicians in a concert hall or coffeehouse can see, hear, and feel their audience. Even when they’re separated by rows of seats and what actors call the “fourth wall,” audience and performers are interacting. . . .
For most writers most of the time, the audience is not physically present while we’re writing, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Even when we’re writing primarily for ourselves, we’re consciously or unconsciously choosing our words with someone or someones in mind. These imaginary readers (who may include people we know in real life) help us focus our work.
When writers rely too heavily on typography to get the point across, it’s often because the writing itself needs attention. Changes in speaker can be conveyed in words alone. Italics can be used to let readers know when a character is thinking to herself, but when the italics run on for a long paragraph or even a whole page or two, it’s time to take another look at the writing.
As the letter J drew closer in my passage through the alphabet, I couldn’t decide between “journey” and “journal.” The two words had to be closely related, I thought, and so they are: both stem from the Latin word for “day,” diurnis, by way of the Anglo-French. If you know any French, or even if you don’t, the “jour-” in “journey” and “journal” probably suggests jour, the French word for “day.”
“Journey,” it seems, originally suggested a day’s travel. Now a journey can take much longer, especially if you’re working on a book-length work, but breaking it down into days isn’t a bad idea. The journey may indeed lead into dangerous places, but the closer you get, the less scary they seem — because you’re getting braver with every step you take, every word you write.
It also brings me round to the question of what can we word people do in this world where it seems our skills are only valued if we put them in the service of spin, obfuscation, manipulation, and outright lying.
It brought Theodora Goss around to a similar place. At first she thought (feared?) that writing had no use and maybe she should have gone into another line of work. “But now I think that one of our most important tasks is telling stories, and I am a storyteller. I am a perpetuator and creator of narrative patterns. That means I have an obligation to be aware of the patterns, to wield them in ways that are good, and true, and useful. And I can create new patterns.”
That’s the key: the old patterns won’t lose their power with the wave of a pen, but they can be undermined and transformed, and new patterns can be created. I saw it happening in f/sf, where women went from being add-ons and sidekicks to having their own adventures.
Maybe what you most need to know is whether you’re a writer or not, a real writer. Writers wonder about this a lot, especially writers who don’t make a living writing or aspire to make a living or even part of a living from writing. Also writers who can’t point to books — ideally several books — that have their name on the cover, or a sheaf of clippings with their byline at the top.
Writers are ingenious at coming up with reasons they’re not real writers. Do nurses and carpenters and cooks and teachers keep coming up with reasons that they’re not real nurses and carpenters, cooks and teachers?
Read all 26 posts in Susanna’s A to Z Challenge.
Such an interesting concept. Challenge accepted!
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Indeed!
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Nice post, excellent concept
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Excellent blog post. The A – Z challenge sounds scary though. Before I forget, good jour. Ah, French.
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I love this concept
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Great idea
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Right on time. I’ve been wondering how to keep myself engaged with so many competing priorities.
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Ah, this is interesting
Better get the thinking cap on
Capture a thought
Drop any negative thoughts
Eventually it will right itself
Feeble, yes I know it is
Gather around
Hear the pin drop
Ink is beginning to flow
Just in time I say
Keep this secret
Less said now the better
Making tracks
Now
Owing to
Pressure of time
Quarter to eight in the evening
Rest assured
Someone will
Try to
Understand what this is all about
Verily I say onto you
Words, no matter how they are placed on a page can be marked with an
X
Yardstick for
Zigzagging your way from A-Z.
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Really cool!
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Interesting 🤔. I like it!
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Interesting challenge. Will have to try this!
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Yup, like it too.
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Great, joined in late but I” definitely take this challenge
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Well deserved! I’ve been following Susanna for years now and I always found a nugget of advice when she blogs about writing. Her A to Z Challenge was excellent! I also love her personal blog about all things Martha Vineyard.
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The A–Z Challenge is a little scary, like impending deadlines are scary, especially when they come one after another. But deadlines also help you focus on what needs to be done. You rise to the occasion, and you surprise yourself. Try it!
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Fantastic! (I’ve been following Susanna’s A to Z posts through the Challenge in April.) Congratulations, Susanna.
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Nice post.
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This is such a fascinating challenge and such a great read! I agree with the comment from Susanna about how scary impending deadlines can be but it can help you focus on what needs to be done! Thinking I might have to give this challenge a go!
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Interesting that the challenge was the motivation you needed. Motivating oneself is almost a full time job for writers. This year I set some intentions and have been busy making sure that I keep those commitments, One of my intentions was to start a blog and I did recently although its still in its infancy. I will keep coming back to your site for both information and inspiration.
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You’re exactly right. The same is true for freelance editors like me Meeting deadlines isn’t all that hard, and the reward for doing it is serious: You get paid! You get more work from the client! But how to keep, say, four hours of work from taking up ten hours of your day? That’s the challenge.
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I guess meeting other people’s expectations is more challenging than simply meeting your own . iI your income is impacted then of course you want to use the time profitably.
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Nice! I might try this.
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Excellent
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Connection is important not italics. Just by tilting the words a little connection cannot be formed. Words make connection not a different form of writing. Juliet didn’t use italics to write letters to Romeo. Journey and journal are connected by the word experience.
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Indeed an interesting challenge 🙂
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What a great challenge!
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What a great idea! This makes finding a subject to write about a really good challenge.
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Haha. Great challenge. I might try this since I am out of ideas on what to post here in WordPress.
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It helped me for sure. I had plenty of things to write about. What I needed was a hook to pull them out of my head.
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Thanks for introducing me to this simply fantastic post! I will definitely head over to her blog and read all 26 letters of the alphabet
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Interesting! you’re exactly right. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank you for inspiring me to write here in wordpress. Please continue posting so that I can get some ideas. I want to enhance my writing skills. Thank you so much!!
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Wow…really love this. Very cool and obviously inspiring…wish to have more from you soon.
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Very unique! Definitely a solution to the blinking cursor. Thank you!
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I should use this to start writing more, although I may not do it on my blog/might need to start a new blog as my current one is a poetry blog, and I want to expand way beyond poetry which I haven’t felt much inspired to write lately.
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Wow, I like this very organized piece. It’s very inspiring. Thumbs up to Susanna Sturgis.
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Interesting read, thanks for the prompts! I have a notebook somewhere of poems I wrote where each title was a star sign. I think working through the alphabet may be a bit much for me though.
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This is such an interesting concept!
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Awesome ideas here, Cheri!
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All the credit should go to Susanna!
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I suppose writers don’t like to consider themselves writers until they’ve legitimized themselves in the public eye through published works and critical acclaim.
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It’s so cool how the mind can come up with such an interesting concept!
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Great idea!
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A to Z really is a great Challenge for bloggers. We just wrapped up our 8th year of A to Z with thousands having participated since it began in 2010. Watch for the next official Blogging from A to Z April Challenge in 2018!
Arlee Bird
Tossing It Out
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I might try this!
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Great idea to keep going
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