A Glimpse Into My Writing Process

I chose to share bits of my writing process from a new project I am working on. I recently started a new job where my role is to produce a monthly article connecting the work, lives, and projects of DePaul faculty to the Vincentian mission.

The images I chose to circulate feature my planning process as well as the notes from an important meeting that laid out expectations and procedures. I took these photos where I like to do most of my writing: at a refinished antique desk in my apartment, lit up by candlelight, accompanied with a fresh cup of tea.

This is a screenshot of my Instagram post. I wanted to make it not obvious that this was just a post for class so I made sure to craft the caption and capture the photo in a way that fit organically with my usual posts. The caption invited viewers into a sneak preview of something that will be coming up soon in my life and clued them into what it will be about. I used emojis as well to keep it on “brand” I guess you could say. The post performed about average for a 12-hour time span that does not feature a human or a dog.

For my next post, I wanted to switch things up a bit to once again attempt to not make it obvious this was for a class

I posted this image to my Instagram story and it received 122 views. I chose this image because it really does reflect my writing process in a unique way. I almost always have to have a cup of tea with me if I am going to write anything of quality. I posted the question as a way to potentially engage viewers and get them thinking a bit more about their own writing process — whether that worked or not will likely never be known, but I like to think maybe people did. There is also a sense of nostalgia that I incorporated into this image for those who went on the Vincentian Heritage Tour with me. The mug featured here I got in Paris while on VHT and I am working on writings for the Division of Mission and Ministry, so I drew on Simmons ideas of nostalgia being a tool for engagement here.

I then went to Twitter and posted the following tweet:

This year as part of me trying to make my life a bit more positive, I have been tweeting out one good moment, conversation, or experience from each day and labeling it with the date. I decided to make this post that for yesterday. These posts have been some of my most successful tweets in terms of engagement so I thought it would be an interesting way to see the circulation when it has to do with my writing process. The text for this is a bit more care-free and personal because I use Twitter more in this way than I do Instagram.

These are the statistics pulled from the tweet (just using the function on the app) and it shows that I did get quite a few interactions with this tweet.

Overall this activity allowed me to examine how my own writing process works and if it is, or is not, interesting to others. In terms of circulatory rhetorics, I think this was a tough thing to try and circulate because it is hard to get others to engage with and think about writing outside of the environments they associate it with (school, work, etc) since most people use social media as an escape from those types of stressors.