Maureen Johnson (@maureenjohnson)

Pretty sure I’ve blogged about Maureen before. She’s a young adult fiction writer from New York (author of Suite Scarlett, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Girl At Sea, Devilish and lots of others). I don’t remember how I stumbled upon her blog, but I fell in love with it before I read any of her books (which are also ace), which to me signals somebody who really gets it. Maureen is BFFs with the internet and social media, and clearly knows a) who her audience is and b) how to talk to them. She is also a Twitter (@maureenjohnson) and Facebook machine. I can’t count the number of author blogs I’ve read, but out of all of them – Neil Gaiman’s included – Maureen’s is the only one I check into on a regular basis. She is so, so funny – go read. Go!

Natalie Tran (@natalietran)

Natalie Tran is the very clever and funny Australian girl behind Community Channel on YouTube. She’s loltacular. I can’t say much more than that really, just watch this video. (For some reason WordPress isn’t letting me embed video today. Rude.)

Robyn Wilder (@orbyn)

Robyn is a longtime blogger, fellow Domestic Slut, highly entertaining and insightful writer and all-round pocket rocket. I had the bittersweet pleasure of getting to know Robyn just months before leaving the motherland to come home to Oz. Shocking timing, but better late than never.

You need to read her blog. Especially this post and this one and definitely this one. Oh gosh, and this one, which is fucking hilarious. And this one, which nearly made me cry. (Me! Stone-hearted me!)

The other thing about Robyn is that, like most of the bloggers I’ve met IRL, she is absolutely bloody lovely, and as funny in person as she is in print. Not to mention a human storage facility of excellent writing advice. (Oh get me, I’ve come over all gushy.)

Sian Meades (@sianysianysiany)

Siany is the clever kitten behind Domestic Sluttery, and one of the few people I know who don’t just have great ideas but actually act on them. I feel this is a pretty crucial part of the genius process.

Sian is that friend you have who, while you’re writing a book, has actually sat down and written one (and I have the memory of a celebratory hangover to prove it). She is gutsy and able in a “Who says I can’t do insert notoriously challenging activity here?” way, and rapidly becoming an online force to be reckoned with. She’s also fantastically fun, great to get drunk with and a brilliant Hay Festival camping buddy. Oh, and she made me a Domestic Slut, so I love her.

I also want to mention the other Domestic Sluts, who are all great writers and mavens of cool. Special places in my little bloggy heart for  Gemma Cartwright and Jane Bradley, who make up the original five sluts. Both are fabulous in a real way, not like “Oh, those shoes are fabulous” but “Oh god, look at all the amazing stuff you’ve done, it hardly seems fair that you’re also rather pretty and nice.”

Gosh, I’m going to get some serious hits for all these repetitions of ‘slut’.

Margaret Nelson (@Flashmaggie)

Margaret is a marvellous broad, and I mean that in the best way. She has about a million blogs (okay, four) including one about death, one about clouds, one for her own art and one about… erm, everything else. Oh, and she also writes some great pieces for the Suffolk Humanists and Secularists site. I guess I just really like her because she’s a brilliant example of someone who refuses to shut up about humanism and secularism, even though there are so many people who wish humanists and secularists would just shut up or go away. Or maybe it’s more that god-free types aren’t supposed to be passionate about atheism, we’re just meant to be stoic and roll our eyes a lot. Either way, she’s not doing it and you can’t make her.

Danielle LaPorte (@DanielleLaPorte)

I am new to the brilliance that is Danielle LaPorte. Full credit to LC Hammer (speaking of fabulous broads…) for introducing me to White Hot Truth, now a regular stop for me when I’m in need of creative and entrepreneurial inspiration. I like her a lot. And I like her summary of White Hot Truth:

“for freedom fighting and love. for conscious business. for ruthless compassion, everyday life as art, and in praise of simplicity! for affluence (all forms of it) and passion that persuades.”

Lately I’ve really enjoyed her pieces, 11 Slightly scary ways to become a better you, How to apologise and 11 Tips for dealing with criticism.

However… I have several excuses. Would you like to hear them?

Excuse #1. I have a FUN NEW PROJECT! It is called Domestic Sluttery, and it is the brainchild of Siany, who had the genius-like impulse to gather three lovely gals (the gorgeous Robyn, the stylish Gemma and the delicious Jane) and me (the… Australian one) into a circle of fabulousness to blog about a) cooking, b) cocktails, c) design, d) homey things and e) er, other fun stuff. The tagline is The home and lifestyle blog for women who have better things to do, and I think that pretty much sums it up. If you’d like to know more (i.e. if you have ovaries and excellent taste), please drop in and say hi.

Excuse #2. I have been writing The Book. This may not seem like a big deal, but for the last several years I have compiled tens of thousands of words worth of outline, plotting, re-plotting, planning, character profiles, place names, miscellaneous ideas, brief passages, re-writes of brief passages, re-writes of re-writes of brief passages… and somehow have never written a full, cohesive chapter of this book that I’ve been saying I’m writing for I don’t know how long. I do have excellent intentions – every weekend I tell myself I’m going to spend my whole Saturday or Sunday just writing. Instead, I spend a couple of hours writing outline, plotting various ideas, jotting down snippets of dialogue and drinking lots of coffee, before finally I give up and go shopping.

Recently I had to ask myself, “Self, are we actually writing a book? Or are we writing around a book? Even worse – are we talking about writing a book without actually writing one at all?”

So I decided to sort myself out. I did this in the same way I sort all of my brain-induced problems out. I PSYCHOLOGICALLY DERREN BROWNED MYSELF!

If you are wondering what this means, let me give you some examples.

a) I find it difficult to get up in the morning. So sometimes I will reset the time on my phone to some time earlier than the actual time (usually a random number, e.g. 43 minutes earlier) so that I will get up earlier the next day and be on time for work. However, if I KNOW that I’ve done this, it sort of defeats the purpose. So while I’m resetting the time I will try to distract myself, for example by singing along to Blame It On the Boogie by the Jackson Five AND doing the dance at the same time, or by inputting my credit card details online to buy something pretty and distracting, like Scarlett Johansson (this is a lie, I have never bought Scarlett Johansson online, I am just using her as an example because she is pretty – you cannot deny this – and also she is distracting, because whenever I see her in a movie I find her very annoying, and it distracts me from the film-watching experience. Perhaps this is not such a good example after all), or by setting the timer on my coffeemaker at the SAME TIME as I change the time on my phone, so that my brain switches the two things around in my head and I magically forget that I am playing a trick on myself.

b) That was really tiring to write about, so I’m not giving you any more examples.

SO. I booked into the Urban Writers Retreat. The UWR is held monthly at The Make Lounge, a lovely place in Islington where people go to make stuff and meet cool peeps and hang out and stuff. The Derren Brown-style trickery came into play because the UWR costs £35, so you kind of feel like you are financially committed to actually writing while you are there (from 10am to 6pm), also you have committed your entire Sunday – an ENTIRE HALF of your precious weekend – to doing nothing but write, and ALSO… this is the biggie… there’s no wifi at The Make Lounge.

Nobody loves the internets more than me (well, except maybe Larry Page and Sergey Brin), but when it comes to writing, my general policy is that 

THE INTERNET IS EVIL.

So anyway, to wrap up, I went to the Urban Writers Retreat and by the end of the day had 5,000 words and a full plotted outline. And then, even better, I started writing at home. Properly. And in Starbucks. Properly. Full sentences and everything. It’s a revolution.

Excuse #3. Um,  my leg is haunted.

Excuse #4. My laptop got stolen… by a DINOSAUR!

Excuse #5. I have been distracted yet again by the terrifying, awe-inspiring, time-sucking accidental genius that is Mad Cow Tourist Info.

Excuse #6. I made you some cookies.

Excuse #7. You’re pretty.

And for my next trick, I will tell you all about the EXCITING AND OVERLY AMBITIOUS COMMITMENT that I am making. It is called Blog Every Day April, and was inspired by YA author and general Baroness of Greatness Maureen Johnson. The idea is to… blog every day in April.

Just to make things official, here is the Blog Every Day April manifesto:

I commit to this idea and am determined to create something EVERY DAY in April, including weekends. Every day, I will find something to say. I embrace the reality that there is always something to talk about, if you are willing to take the time to look for it.

I, Digressica, promise to blog every day in April.

Of course, I’m obviously going to cheat by scheduling some of my posts (sorry, but I have to – Shezwa and I are off to Bath this weekend), but my intention is for something written by me to go live on Digressica.com AND Domestic Sluttery EVERY. SINGLE. DAY in April. And I hope that will make up for a crappy March.

Do you have a blog? Perhaps you should join the BEDA movement too! Go on, it’ll be fun, maybe.

*crickets*

Yours in ridiculously over-zealous intentions,

Digressica.