Category: Keeping it real

This week, as always, has been a learning experience.  I habitually do research on any topic that catches my fancy and I love to learn new technical tools and techniques.  Writing, navigating the process of getting a manuscript ready to publish, and thinking beyond publication to promotion have given me many opportunities to feed the Elephant’s Child. At times, I’m overwhelmed by all the information, but as I search, read, and apply, I’m finding that the same information comes up in multiple contexts, and bits and pieces I didn’t understand the first or second time begin to make sense by the third time I see them.

My main focus this week has been on online editing tools and on taming the amount of time I spend working on social media.  By “working”, I mean social media tasks to develop a platform for connecting with readers and eventually promoting my first book.  In a way, it’s like developing a persona. I don’t express my entire personality when I wear my writer’s hat on social media, but I do express some aspects of myself that haven’t seen the light of day in recent years. From the inside, I feel like I’m in touch once again with some of my longest-running interests.  So many subjects of interest from my teens and early 20s had to be put aside due to other commitments. Now those interests aren’t just relevant. They are central.

Continue reading “Postcard from (Writer’s) space – Keeping It Real V”

Starting this week, I’ve decided to do something different with this series of articles. Instead of a weekly progress report, I want to write about the journey to bring a novel — a creative work — into the world. As Hillary Clinton wrote, it takes a village to raise a child. It may not take a village to write a book (though sounding boards are a wonderful thing), it does take a village to publish one. When I took my initial steps toward the goal of publishing The Gideon Effect, I had no idea how much help I’d find or have offered to me along the way.

I will have many friends to list on my eventual acknowledgments page. It may be longer than a page.

Continue reading “Keeping It Real IV”

Last Monday, I set out some goals for the next few months on my path to getting my novel The Gideon Effect published and some objectives for the week. Today, I look back at last week’s list, see how I did, and give myself some new assignments for the coming week.

Last week’s objectives:

Continue reading “Keeping It Real II”

I could write my goals and progress on a scrap of paper, or even in a nice leatherbound planner, but what would be the fun in that? Who would laugh at me or poke at me for not hitting my targets? That’s correct: nobody but me, and I’m not nearly hard enough on myself.

My goals for the next few months are ambitious. I would like to complete the beta reading/re-revising process for The Gideon Effect by the end of June. Earlier would be great, but I’m not sure how fast to expect the beta readers to read and critique each chapter. I’ve scheduled a week per chapter. Concurrent with the beta reading, I’m educating myself on the next steps in the publication process. I have some significant decisions ahead:

Continue reading “Keeping it real”