I am starting to realize how difficult it must be for professional writers to keep everything going all the time. We amateurs may think all they do all day long is sit and write, but really there is so much more going on than that. Take my current list of projects and the associated activities. I have a book under contract. That means I will soon be doing revisions, marketing and promotion. The revisions seem straightforward enough, but the promotional and marketing elements could be huge. Interviews, blog tours, talking to book stores, getting all the various social media outlets setup. I am self-publishing a book. That means revisions, layout, getting cover art and, as above, all the promotional elements. […]
Read moreCategory: About Writing
Upheaval
There’s nothing quite like starting a new job (or having a baby or buying a house or…) to throw a wrench into one’s writing schedule. As you no doubt read in earlier posts, I have been suffering a bout of writing doldrums that I only just started to drag myself out of. No sooner do I begin that fight than massive change hits. Don’t get me wrong, the change is a good one. It means working in my field again for a company that already seems pretty awesome. My co-workers are all very helpful/friendly and I actually get to read again (something I sorely missed). Still, there is something inherently stressful in a new job. You want to make a […]
Read moreWash, Rinse, Repeat
I’ve been doing a bit of introspection the past while. Maybe it’s natural, being a new year and all, and it is something I do from time to time. I do it as a self-improvement exercise. I look at what I haven’t liked in the past while and try to see what my role was in it. Perhaps I was too laid back or maybe I was too intense. Did I make the most of opportunities or did I let self-doubt intrude. I won’t say that it always works but I do believe the process keeps me moving in the right general direction. It’s one of those things that is never a single iteration either. I try to do it […]
Read moreSome Salient Points
I was listening to Mur Lafferty’s “I Should Be Writing” podcast this morning. Specifically episode 171. I love Mur’s podcast because she is so honest about her own writing journey and because a lot of things she talks about are things I’m going through too. In this particular episode she talked about two things that really resonated with me. The first was the sense of entitlement some people seem to have, specifically entitlement about getting published. There were times where I’ve felt that sense of jealousy towards people who “seem” to have hit the jackpot and been published the first time out. Usually what happens is I do additional research and discover that these people have years and YEARS of […]
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