I Thought. I Did!
It’s so easy to get caught up in routine and practice, and that’s not a bad thing. I write every day in one form or another. Sometimes I forget I also need at least brief periods away from the pen.
Why? That’s when I’m thinking.
There’s something wonderful about leaving the pen and keyboard for a day or two. Housework gets done (no, really!), movies get watched, books get read, art gets absorbed, and conversations happen. All the while, my little writer brain is feverishly at work creating concepts, characters, or seeds of ideas. In a short time my mind will grow gravid and heavy. The next time I pick up that pen, all kinds of interesting things develop.
So, while I’m looking like this:
it is a useful pose to help me do this:
Midweek Weekender
We’ll run a little bit longer today to help make up for the fiasco that is technology this past weekend.
6 Lessons the Grateful Dead can Teach Us About Writing
The Myth of the Tortured Writer
The String and structure in your writing
Writing Free (because a lot of my stories seem to start this way)
Carpe Mousa asked a question: What if your characters woke up one morning and discovered you had died? The answer made me smile.
How to Make the Most of a Book Conference
Nest Building as a metaphor for stories and novels.
Creating Fictional Characters, Part 3
Self-Editing One Step at a Time: Charting the Novel Story Arc
The Courage to be Wrong (heck I’m still trying to find courage to be myself!)
How Important is it to be Paid for Your Writing
5 Ways Your Day Job Can Help Your Writing
Jumpstart Your Initiative: You’ve Waited Long Enough
Trust the Reader (I fall into this trap in every rough draft; s’why I love my beta readers)
Too Many Sweet Choices
How long has it been since you’ve had too many choices in a good way? My current circumstance is how I imagine I would feel when confronted with one of those cheesecake samplers. Which one do I try first? They are all wonderful and I will die a little with each bite. Which one should be the first to feel the stab of my fork?
I spent time on Saturday with a respected friend trying to decide which project to tackle next. I have multiple novels in various stages of development, two nonfiction books, and ideas for the website. Where do I begin? I’ll enjoy it all, but which do I savor first? Looking over the sampling of novels in their conceptual stage (freewriting, maybe a scene or two, and backstory), how do I choose which to work on?
What a delicious dilemma! I have made my selection, but I’m also hording that sampler. When this one is done, I’ll choose another. It might take me a while, but I will savor every bite of the different kinds of cheesecake on this tray. Yum!
How do you decide between multiple projects that all call sweetly? Do you apply any criteria for them?
WYMJ Weekender, June 27
Down below you will find all that is left of this post, which weighed in over 2 dozen links. I saved the draft at 8:48 and again at 9:47. I watched the site autosave it at least a dozen times. When I clicked the preview button, I had to sign in again. It is all gone.
I take this post pretty seriously. Six hours of reading, gleaning, and double checking went into tonight’s work. It’s late and I don’t have the heart to try to reconstruct tonight. I am so sorry. I will cut my writing time short tomorrow and find as many of those links as I can.
Sometimes technology sucks. I’ve never trusted it completely, and this is why. The log says I saved the damn drafts and the flicker of autosave was also witnessed by hubby. And it’s gone.
The Writing Life:
Process & Method:
First Draft Secrets: 5 Simple Steps from Write to Done
Publishing & Industry:
Should You Self-Publish? comes from JA Konrath, author if the Jack Daniels books.
Tribute Week - Authors Who Share
To end Tribute Week here, I’d like to mention a few authors who give back in a major way. Through websites, teaching, and sharing, these three give the rest of us a boost of information and inclusion in their worlds.
The first of these writers is Lynn Viehl. Her posts are humorous, useful, insightful, educational, and sometimes all of the above. Lynn has such a wonderful sense of humor and really does enjoy sharing with writers and fans…it shows on her blog, Paperback Writer, and aggregate blog, GenReality.
Here are a few recent posts to give you a good sense of what Paperback Writer has:
Entitled Ten - Ten things to help you with titles
Antagonist No-Nos - Ten Things I Hate About Your Antagonist
Sometimes Telling - a personal experience that becomes a great metaphor for showing things through the eyes of your character.
Cafe Temptation - I’m not there and won’t be for a while, but I could still identify and laugh.
GenReality also includes posts from Lynn Viehl, Alison Kent, Joseph Nassise, Carrie Vaughn, Sasha White, and Jason Pinter. If you follow this blog, you might be aware that GenReality frequently appears in the Weekender. It’s seriously good stuff, just as Lynn’s blog is one of a kind for writers.
My list of generous authors also includes J.A. Konrath. We might know him best for tales of Jack (Jacqueline) Daniels, but Konrath also writes horror. His early books (unpublished), along with short stories and serials, are now on his website as a free download. He also offers The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing as a free ebook (and the information he shares is worth it). You can find his blog here.
I recommend Origin. His pace keeps you turning the page, and even the quieter moments just lead you into something. I like Konrath’s voice and writing a lot. That he is so candid and willing to share what he’s learned on his road to being a published author is awesome.
And of course Holly Lisle has to be on this list. If you haven’t yet checked out her Writer Crash Tests, please do. They are done in a playful way that gets serious information across. Her site is extensive, with a blog, links to her WiPs, her novel writing course, How to Think Sideways, and the writer crash tests. There is the standard author information and a great ebook download titled Mugging The Muse, Writing Fiction for Love and Money. Holly also has a newsletter with direct links to various projects and information.
Of course there are other authors out there who generously share their knowledge and talent. I would love it if you would consider sharing them in the comments.
