Blogging at Bookstock: Live to Write Goes on the Road

On Saturday, Wendy E. N. Thomas, Lisa J. Jackson and I appeared at the Bookstock Literary Festival to talk about writing this collaborative blog.

Wendy kicked the panel discussion off with the story of how the blog started, back in 2010. Live to

Write – Write to Live was initially meant to be an on-line writing group, but quickly morphed into a blog about writing, helping newbies and professionals with information and inspiration.

 

Lisa followed with a riff about the mechanics of how eight busy writers manage to post new content six days a week using a Google Calendar and WordPress.

 

I spoke about how we all use the blog both to teach and inspire other writers and to market our own work.

 

 

Here are some highlights for starting a blog:

• Start with a Good Idea
• Give value: information and/or entertainment
• Write short paragraphs
• Include photos
• Create good titles
• Post regularly and frequently
• Keep posts short, 400-600 words
• Invite guest bloggers for additional content
• Spread the word

Our audience was curious and engaged, and followed our presentation with questions we were happy to answer – until we ran out of time.

Afterward, the three of us and Marc Nozell (Wendy’s husband and our photographer for the day) headed off for a fabulous lunch under the tent.

Bookstock is a wonderful, three-day literary festival in downtown Woodstock, Vermont, held the last weekend in July. It combines practical workshops, like ours, and readings by poets and prose writers. It also affords a chance to visit with far-flung literary friends and to make new ones.

After Wendy and Lisa headed back to New Hampshire, I stuck around for a poetry fix. When I finally headed home, I was recharged and ready to sit down to write.

Deborah Lee Luskin is enormously grateful to be blogging with the seven other women who comprise Live to Write – Write to Live, and to all the readers who regularly read, “like” and comment on the blog. Thank you.