Musings about writing and other things
It may have come to your attention that it’s been a week since I last updated this blog. Fear not, I haven’t been lazing around, but I have been avoiding things. Here are some of the reasons why this blog has gone without a post in recent history:
10. The dog ate it.
When we move from writing a draft to the various stages of polishing it and getting it ready for publication, we also move from isolation to interaction. Without the immediate contrast between those two states of writerly being, I don’t think I would realize how isolating the early stages of writing a novel actually are.
Part of the appeal of NaNoWriMo is the group experience, including some public suffering if you’re into that sort of thing. You can attend write-ins, join sprints (where you write as fast as you can for a few minutes, take a break and then sprint again). Going through the process of writing a first draft novel with millions of people worldwide, and potentially thousands of people in your metropolitan area can give you a sense of companionship even if you never reach out and take advantage of it.
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”
For your reading pleasure, here are several articles about writing, publishing and promoting I’ve read this week and found useful, thought-provoking, and otherwise helpful. In this edition, I’ve focused primarily on the topic of writing, because I ran into several articles on writing that gave me food for thought and tools for improvement. Enjoy!
One of the advantages of writing about what I know and where I live is that I can walk through the settings for some of my scenes, particularly outdoor scenes. And I have a fairly lengthy and dramatic series of scenes set in the Berkeley and Oakland hills of the Bay Area. Today I walked some of the trails and ridges in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, taking in the sights and sounds my characters would experience.
Continue reading “Walking in my Characters’ Footsteps in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Park”
