And I Begin Again

Starting over

Once, a long, long time ago (2007? 2009?) I started a blog. It was about writing and everything related and I posted regularly on it for many years. In those innocent glory days of blogging, the blogosphere was a wonderful place. I loved the other bloggers and writers I met and the community we formed.

Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash

Then social media took over and blogging became not so much of a thing. People posted on Facebook on Insta or Twitter and sadly, blogs died out. But now, thanks to Substack, blogs are back with a lot more capabilities and features.

And I’m here for it.

So allow me to introduce myself. I’m Charlotte Rains Dixon, author, writing coach, writing teacher, and workshop leader. I live in a multi-generational household in Portland, Oregon that is messy and exuberant and seldom quiet (I write with headphones on most days). I earned my MFA in fiction from the Spalding low-residency program back in 2003 (a proud member of the first graduating class) and I’ve been teaching ever since. I’m an inveterate journaler, I write fiction and the occasional non-fiction article. (I was a free-lance writer for years.) I’ll share more with you as I get this baby going, but that’s enough for now.

One of my early taglines was life is writing, writing is life, and that’s pretty much how I still feel. My writing informs my life and my life informs my writing, so you’ll get some of both here.

But mostly you can expect posts on writing craft, mindset, motivation and inspiration. My plan is to write once a week as I get started again. I write a weekly love letter and my next task is to get that integrated here, so all of my work is in one place. (Except for my author newsletter, which I keep separate because not all novel readers are interested in reading about writing. ) The weekly letter comes out every Sunday so eventually you’ll get to read that here, too!

And besides me writing, I’d love to begin fostering community again. I welcome comments, ideas, thoughts, chitchat.

Okay, now I’m off to figure out how to make this site look pretty. Fair warning: that may take awhile.