#ZineWriMo Day 7: Try Something New: Stream of Consciousness Writing

Hello and welcome to ZineWriMo Day 7!

For today’s task we have ‘stream of consciousness writing’. If you’re not familiar, SoC writing is where you simply sit and write without stopping. No matter what comes to mind, you keep that pen (or those fingers, if you’re typing) moving.

This can be a great way to dig past all those inner editor thoughts to get to some real gems inside.

Some people use it as an exercise, setting a timer for five minutes, ten, twenty… However long you want to try.

There’s also the site 750 Words that can be a great way to dig into stream of consciousness writing as well as get you into the habit of writing every day. I love how they also give you analytics on your writing.

There is a bit of fair warning when it comes to writing like this and letting it all spill out onto the page. If you’re in a bad frame of mind at the start or get into a bad frame of mind while doing it, you should probably not do it. These sorts of exercises can make those mind spaces worse.

There is absolutely no shame in protecting your Self and your mental health.

Did you try stream of consciousness writing? How did it go? Let me know in the comments.

ZineWriMo Day 6 – Read Zines!

Hello, hello, hello, and happy ZineWriMo. It is day six of this fine month of zine-ing, and today we have a simple but important thing to do…

There’s a saying in writing that you can’t write if you don’t read. In the literal sense, this isn’t true, but in the stylistic, inspirational, and other senses, it’s completely true. The same holds for zines, too.

Zines are a bit more complex than books in the loose definition of what a zine is. However, there in lies the beauty as well as the means by which you can figure out what you do and don’t want to do with your zines. It’s important to pick up zines from a variety of genres to suss out whether you like more cut and paste, fewer words, more colour, the ‘crappy copy machine’ aesthetic, so on and so forth.

Zine reading isn’t just for the beginning, though. I’d hope that if you’re making zines, it’s because you like to read them, too.

If you hadn’t noticed, I really like reading zines.

These are my zines that are next up for me to read and review – and these are just the ones on my desk. I forgot to grab a picture of the zine collection that I have from orders and ones people have donated to me from their own collections that don’t have anyone waiting around for a review.

So many zines. <3

I hope you all have a relaxed day and get in at least a little bit of zine reading. Until tomorrow…

Happy Mail Monday – Late Edition

Happy Monday, zine friends! I am definitely not awake yet. How about you? It’s really not a good sign here considering that it’s about 8.30pm that I am typing this. Haha.

I have some gorgeous mail to share with you this week from gorgeous people. I love it!

This, the 45th issue of The Ken Chronicles, made it into my post box this morning, making it a lovely start to the week. Even lovelier is the story of this zine. I traded a copy of Paper Currency with Ken for The Ken Chronicles 44. Ken noticed that it cost me $9 shipping to send him PC, put the figures into the exchange rate, and told me that it costs me three times more to send him that zine than it cost him to send me his zine.

I didn’t really think about it (besides my usual shipping grumbles), but he actually did the math! And send me this zine in his wonderful generosity to make up for the difference in shipping. I really can’t thank him enough.

If you like perzines, then definitely check out Ken Bausert on We Make Zines. He’s a good guy, and there are a lot of things about his zines to enjoy.

How cute is this zine? The title, the picture of the potato… I am struggling not to use all caps at times here. How am I supposed to get anything done when y’all are sending me zines that I want to read immediately?

The struggle is so real, and a huge thank you to Keira for sending me Small Potatoes #1 for review!

Sober Booooooob! We may be a good many weeks into Sober Bob’s weekly zine (way to go on that note, Bob), but I am nothing if not even more excited to see a zine from Bob in the mail. She has me hooked. I’m like a thought vampire. Write mini-zines about your lives and send them to me. They keep me going.

Thank you, Sober Bob!

http://giphy.com/gifs/rainbow-lol-gif-vomit-LwIw5RCH3hwGc

That’s me for now. I’ll be back soon with today’s daily ZineWriMo post. Woo!

#ZineWriMo Day 5: Make a Zine of Things That Inspire You

Hello, hello, hello zine friends. I don’t know about you, but I slept in big time this morning and only realised later this afternoon that today’s task was to make a zine. Nothing like being late to your own party, eh?

Luckily enough I had the day to myself to work on a zine about the things that inspire me.

As per usual, I had no idea what I was going to make besides the idea from the prompt. So I got out most of my stuff.

The front and back covers popped into my mind first.

I don’t usually break out the ruler for zinemaking, but I wanted to be a little more careful than my usual version of whinging it. I liked thinking about the things that inspire me, though everything really falls under two categories for me – colours and people. Haha.

If you’d like to see the finished mini-zine, check out my Instagram for a little video flip-through.

Just to be clear, these prompts are meant to be fun. Not stressful. Not making you pull your hair own wondering how the heck you are going to do them. No one’s world is going to end if you miss a day or if you start making a zine of things that inspire you but don’t finish it today.

The only reason that I am going for doing all of the tasks on all of the days is because I came up with the daily prompts. I feel like it would be a little weird if I didn’t at least get close to getting everything done.

That’s me for today, friends. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Sunday. I’ll be back tomorrow with some happy mail and a much easier ZineWriMo prompt for the day.

ZineWriMo Day 4 – Share Your Goal(s)/Plan(s)

Hello and happy weekend, zine friends! It is picture perfect here in the land of South Australia. A beautiful spring day to share your plans and/or goals for the month.

In the world of NaNoWriMo, people tend to describe themselves as planners or pantsers. The latter basically means diving in without a plan and just going for it (by the seat of your pants).

Whether your plan is to make a zine, write a novel, or get the house clean, I think it’s good to figure out what kind of person you are. For the most part, I’m a pantser who likes goals. Plans are great, but my mental and physical health demand flexibility. I get too irritated when things don’t go to plan to actually make firm plans.

But that’s just me! Take some time to get a sense of what you like to do.

Before I share my goals, I want to mention that I am also the kind of person to try to do all the things and then be happy with whatever it is I end up with. So please don’t feel like you need to have anything beyond ‘make/finish a zine’ as a goal.

Here are my goals:

*Complete ZineWriMo – don’t miss any days
*Complete all ZineWriMo mini-zines
*Complete mini-zines: Little Reminders 2, Little Reminders 3
*Complete all writing for Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9

Bonus round:

*Complete Dear Anonymous 7
*Complete Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9
*Complete Don’t Call Me Cupcake 9.5

That’s me. It feels like a mountain to deal with at the moment, but we’ll see how things go. Are you sharing your plans and/or goals? Leave a link in the comments so we can all support each other.

Until tomorrow!

Call for Calls for Submissions: Spread the Word About Your Zine/Distro/Library!

Zine Calls for Submissions

Share your call for submissions, let people know about your distro or zine library, announce your newest zine, let people know you are crowdfunding a zine project… If you have an announcement to make that has to do with zines, do it here! Sea Green Zines wants to be your megaphone. Even better? It’s an automatic shout out on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr when you advertise here.

Big fuzzy love hearts to those who have a .jpg call for subs, but all are welcome. Get in touch by emailing theauthor[at]inkyblots.com or comment below.

Zine Review: Connection Edit: Shine

Connection Edit: Shine
Jessica Maybury
www.thejessicamaybury.com
@codenamewallaby

Connection Edit: Shine is a black and white zine collection of blackout poetry. If you’re not familiar, blackout poetry is where you take a piece of text and black out words so the words remaining – your poem – reads as something different to the original.

So if you’re thinking ‘so it’s just a bunch of blacked out words’, then this zine may not be the zine for you. Or you could stick around and let me win you over with my review.

It’s been a while since I’ve sung this particular tune, so I’ll mention that poetry is not a strength of mine. I often don’t understand it and miss whatever points were being made. That being said, I have a strange fascination with blackout poetry.

The text for these poems come from a book called ‘Shine’ given as a gag gift and the last magazine Jessica’s nana read before the end. (Sorry for your loss.) I found the juxtaposition of flippant and serious a strange one, but I wonder if it was intentional in showing that you can make serious out of funny and vice versa no matter what the text.

The poems can be a little hit and miss, but when it hits, it does so in ways I love. Phrases like “To My Nobody” and “You have to shine bright” stuck with me and made my mind drift pleasantly from the poem at hand. No big spoilers here, but the poem on page 7 is definitely my favourite.

I found myself rebelling at the thought of ever finding out what the original text read beneath the swathes of black.

Honestly, I missed the aesthetics for the words on the first read through. I was so focused on words and possible meaning, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I am glad that I went through to check out the visuals because I liked the various washi tapes and pictures used.

If you’re curious about blackout poetry, check out this zine.