Text from Caroline: “Took a photo of my short story in Venice. Didn’t work on it once!” Hey, at least she TOOK her short story to Italy.
Like most other people, both Caroline and I have work to do, places to be–a dozen reasons every day not to write and submit. The past week was a good test for both of us. Caroline had enrolled in a photography class and was headed to Venice (Italy) for the week.
Here’s Caroline on confession cam while living it up in Venice:
Jenny conducting important research on the “ageless grease” of Dyer’s in Memphis.
Meanwhile, I was teaching a public speaking class in Memphis (Tennessee) and eating as much as possible, adding up to two long days of training plus two long days of snow-socked travel (and several very good meals).
How did we do despite the distractions? Better than we expected.
Caroline got a crash course in using Instagram as a storytelling medium with one of the most successful “grammas” out there–and she took her short story along for the trip. (You can see some of Caroline’s great photos here.)
I continued to develop a character for a new story through a comics writing and drawing class I’m taking, and I used my travel time to re-read and edit both a play and a humorous book I’d written a couple of years ago.
Leading to this week:
- Caroline is getting feedback today at 1:00 on her novel, from an editor she’s been working with off and on for the last year. More on that to come.
- I’ve sent my play to an actor/director for reading and input. I’m editing the book today and doing research to submit it to some agents/publishers in the next week.
Proving, at least to ourselves, that it’s possible to keep moving toward our goal for the year, no matter how deliciously greasy the distractions might be.
Taken at our status update meeting, Jan 28, at Drip Coffee in Columbia, SC. (Appears someone wears that slouchy sweater far too often. Meanwhile, someone else was wearing an adorable sweater from Venice. Where’s the pic of that?)
Year of Submission 
I would love if you could share some of the instagram tips?
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Hi Anisa,
Here’s what I learned at a recent photography retreat. Take the best photo you can. Instagram is all about the visual, and it helps to have a relatively uniform look to your Instagram feed. Meaning, think how each photo relates to the other in terms of colors. Also, do you want cool tones, warm tones…? Then you can mix it up with alternating landscapes, portraits of people… If you go on a trip, you could have 6 photos in a row that tell a bit of a visual story. Next in priority is your caption. You can keep it short, or tell a longer story or simply let the photo be the story. People tend to use Instagram as a way to zone out and scroll from one photo to the next, and you want to try every which way you can to catch their attention! Hope that helps.
Caroline
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Thank you!
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