Michelle L. Smith

Instead of reflecting upon the past year as we near its conclusion, I'm looking ahead in this final blog of 2024. While I acknowledge that my last New Year's resolution to expand my writing community was successful, I hope to expand my social media presence in 2025. You may question whether our current political environment is the appropriate time given the plethora of "haters" out there; however, my motivation largely stems from the emergence of an alternative to Twitter/X, FB, Instagram, etc.

About a year ago, I closed my Twitter/X account and switched to Instagram. I understood Instagram to be image driven and that I'd need to put in a lot of effort to build a community dedicated to writing. But with all the projects I've undertaken this year, I've not had time to do so. Then I read posts on the Authors Guild (AG) forum about Bluesky, touted as promoting friendly community groups of like-minded individuals ("starter packs"). So, I investigated. Not long thereafter, I opened a Bluesky account before Bluesky turned into the popular platform it has rapidly become. Immediately, I felt the warmth.

The most reclusive among us might find Bluesky's socialization and camaraderie beneficial. Not only do I share my achievements and accolades with other accomplished writers, but I enjoy reading posts about their cherished fur babies, gardening, cooking, and more. This humanization is available through Instagram, but the field of followers can be tailored with Bluesky. I've received more followers with minimum effort in the first few days of membership than I received in one year on Instagram.

2025 is not all about social media presence. I'm diligently at work on a few projects, including another collaborative effort with an award-winning choreographer that is much larger than the collaboration I participated in earlier this year. As for my latest accomplishments, if you go to my "Books" page, you'll see that I won a top-10 finalist spot in a Halloween themed anthology contest. My poem "The Clock Tower" is one of 60 entries culled from hundreds of international submissions that made the publication (Midnight Masquerade). In addition, my poem "A Black Man's Eulogy" was published in Decolonial Passage. And my essays were published in Dreamers Creative Writing and The Sun.

I also want to enhance the look of this blog by incorporating an inspirational image with each monthly post, an idea generated by a fellow AG member who recently shared her website home page with the membership. That is how community works!

May you fulfill your aspirations and dream big for 2025. And may you find a safe and welcoming community in which to do so. Cheers!

I recently read an Authors Guild post from a writer who received an offer for publication that was withdrawn after the publisher learned she had very few Facebook followers (at least for their purposes). She posted the Guild blog to ask the membership what it deemed a decent number of followers. Like many writers, I don't have an expansive exposure on social media platforms. However, I won a literary award a couple of years ago, which got me thinking that I might need to become more comfortable being in the spotlight. So I enrolled into Toastmasters International to sharpen my public-speaking skills, but I withdrew after a year due to a scheduling conflict with one of my classes. Though I've not yet rejoined, I recently dropped in on a meeting after several months of absence and was asked to participate. To my surprise, I was quite comfortable in front of a mixed crowd of old and new faces. While I'm still holding out on signing up for a Facebook account, it was a smart move to join Toastmasters.

Then last year, I broke down and opened an Instagram account, although I'm not sure how much this platform will increase my visibility among readers and writers. I subsequently won a poetry award, and I recently learned that one of my poems has been accepted for publication in the 2024-25 edition of the San Diego Poetry Annual. This got me thinking about how to promote myself on Instagram, particularly since the editors of the Annual invited me to participate in future poetry readings. I'm now slated to read at my first Open Mic next month at the San Diego Writers Festival.

But, wait—there's more! I'm collaborating with a choreographer who's developing a performance based on a monologue I wrote. Our joint effort will be presented on stage in May, and the producer/choreographer wants to promote my work and platform. I'm also being interviewed by San Diego Writers, Ink. So you see where I'm going with the networking and social media platform thing—I need to get the ball rolling!

As I attempt to leverage my writing successes, I'm expanding my horizons when it comes to self-promotion. I find that by putting greater effort into this venture, I'm generating more opportunities to parlay new and existing relationships into additional prospects. In the end, what excites me most, however, is my ongoing love affair with the written word.

In spite of multiple rejections, regularly producing and submitting work has heightened my confidence in myself as a writer—an award-winning writer at that! So for those of you who think success in this industry is tantamount to a crapshoot, I'm here to tell you that I happen to agree. But I also concur with Nike's famous slogan: "Just Do It".