july in review

I had such a great July! This challenge, of course, was part of the reason why. What I love about blogging are the connections we can make with one another. It's so nice to have friends in the blogosphere and also when people I know in real life write, too!

Writing this month has been fun, and challenging at times. Sometimes I was just not in the mood, at all, so I had to publish something I was not super fond of. Other times, I couldn't get motivated to get the post out early, so sorry for those late days, guys! But then there were some great posts, too. I wrote poetry and liked how it turned out, and I'm most proud of my post There's No App for That. I also really enjoyed writing the letter to first year teachers.

I learned lots, too! I added screencasting and a vlog to my repertoire. I've also been creeping around Periscope a little bit and will be excited to give that a try sometime in the near future! One other thing - some friends on my Good to Great Twitter Chat taught me about Canva, a super cool website you can use to design images, like the one above! Some of the stuff is free, other stuff you have to purchase ($1 here, $1 there) but it's a great way to make your own images rather than lifting them from google. Be sure to check that out!

Of course, July was also amazing because of my work with Illinois Writing Project. At our last lunch together, we were talking about how we would describe it to our colleagues, and someone said, with a laugh, "life changing." We all shook our heads to agree, but then we thought, "No one will understand us." Be on the lookout for some reflections from our group members coming up later on in August!

Thank you to all of my friends who linked up with me - it's been such a pleasure reading your posts over the course of the month! I'm so thankful for the new friends I have now, too!

So the month ends, and as it does, I'm heading out for a vacation. I've been thinking about totally unplugging because I've been too immersed in social media, but I do love writing. So, I'll be around but on a much more limited basis than I was during July. If you don't see me around as much, that's why. Plan to see me back full time mid-August!

What did you learn about yourself as a writer this month?

Get the details for this challenge here!

An InLinkz Link-up