Tag Archives: writer

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Bloggers who inspire and help keep me sane

I’m astounded when I think how many people have come into my life the last three years through blogging. Only twice, since my school days, have I had a “social circle”. The first developed when I joined a church. That lasted twelve years. For several years after that, I retained a couple of church friends, and then we drifted apart.

A circle of virtual friends

In 1988, I moved 2,000 miles away from my birthplace to California. I knew no one here, and since I didn’t work outside the home, I met very few people. My growing family sufficed as a social circle. Fast-forward twenty years. I decided to take fiction writing seriously, and soon realized I needed the company of other writers.

That was the beginning of a new social circle, though for the most part, it’s become a virtual circle. I started this blog five months after I started my new life as a writer. I’ve met many wonderful people, mostly writers and poets, through blogging. I can’t imagine making it this far without them.

If you scroll down, over there on the right side of this page you’ll find links to some of the bloggers who’ve entertained, inspired, and taught me. At various times, most of them have kept me company on this blog. Some have helped me through numerous private emails. A few are writers I’ve met in real life. You would do well to visit their blogs.

I said in my last post that I would mention a few who recently lifted me from my despair and inspired me to come clean about why I self-published. So here goes:

  • Michelle Davidson Argyle is open and honest about her struggles as a writer in both her public and private blogs. Many times, I’ve read her posts and marveled that her thoughts and feelings mirrored mine. With her post on failure, she inspired me to change my attitude about my self-publishing venture.
  • Cristina Trapani Scott has inspired me many times, but recently she wrote a post about words as food that woke me up to how malnourished I’d become. Recalling the days when writing sustained my soul, I felt starved. Her post pointed out not so much a needed change in attitude, but a change in focus.
  • Jessica Luton is new to blogging, but she’s long been an inspiration on Twitter and Facebook. Recently she wrote a post about opening ourselves to abundance. It was another reminder that my attitude needed changing.
  • Chris King wrote a post about aging and how to find more joy and energy. Since all the stress in my life had certainly made me feel I’d aged rapidly, I appreciated her post. Again, it pointed out the need for a change in attitude.

These are not the only bloggers or posts that inspired me this year. I hesitated to make this list, knowing I would leave out important ones, so know that these are only a few of those most crucial to my renaissance. I hope you enjoy them.


Photo credit: showbizsuperstar

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Three years and counting!

Today, I’ll congratulate myself for keeping this blog going for three years this month. With this post, I’ve published 487 glimpses into my mind. That’s a frightening thought appropriate for the day before Halloween.

Lately, I tallied how many of the personal blogs I’ve followed over these years have either disappeared or have long periods of inactivity. Most of those blogs belonged to writers, and I have to ask myself if the reason my fellow writers have become ex or occasional bloggers is because they’re more serious writers than I am.

Actually, since I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of writer I am, I’m pretty sure I’ve answered my own question. I think I’m serious about writing—and writing well—but less serious about publication. In fact, I might just bare all soon and write a post about the real reason I self-published my novel.

It’s a bit awkward to discover yourself in a public way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve regretted writing some posts and pages and have removed several of them. I think it’s hard for perfectionists to be bloggers. :-)

Nevertheless, I’m still having fun here, so I’m launching year four. I hope you’ll voyage with me.

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Writing feedback, how much is enough?

Well, I guess this means I’m blogging again—more or less. I spent my time off thinking, and reading, and traveling. Now, I’ve returned to writing. Though, obviously, I didn’t write a real blog post for today. I just have questions for you.

Once upon a time, I wrote a novel. At the time, I belonged to a critique group with about fifteen members. After several months, I left that group for one of four because the smaller group could work through a book quicker. A few months later, I also joined a group of seven or eight, but that didn’t last. Now, with my foursome on hiatus, I’m not sure how I’ll get the needed feedback on the stories I’m writing.

Maybe some of you are supremely confident in writing solo, but except for what you read on this blog, I can’t imagine ever submitting, or publishing, something without it being critiqued, edited, beta-read, then edited again. That’s why I’m curious how you all go about getting feedback on your writing.

  • Where do you find your help?
  • Are your critiquers all fellow writers? (I presume you incorporate non-writers at beta-read stage.)
  • How many people do you involve for the initial feedback?
  • Do those answers depend on the length of the work?

Please share your method with me.

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Did publication make me a Grumpy Bear?

Once again, I’m reminded of the mixed blessing of getting what you asked for. The other day, I spent some time looking back at some of my old posts, ones I wrote before publication of my novel. I was so upbeat then. My posts reflected optimism for my future as an author. I let the “baggage” that came with publication murder that.

I don’t like this gloomy person I’ve become. More than once lately, I’ve read a blog post written by a hopeful writer, and found myself sneering with cynicism. At least I had enough sense not to leave a comment revealing my negative opinion.

What changed me from a champion of writers to a cynic?  In short—business. I bemoaned the necessity of adding book publicist to my role as writer, but what I actually did was replace one for the other. Big mistake!

After reading those old posts, there’s no question in my mind that I much prefer the writer me. I’m happy writing. It’s a great adventure. Oh sure, about every other day, I wailed that my writing was garbage, but I never really believed that because I had hope. I could learn. I could fix my mistakes. I could become the writer I wanted to be.

Then, I had to promote my writing. I suck at that. Really, truly, I do. And because I fail so miserably at it, my brain mixed up my view of myself as a marketer/publicist with my view of myself as a writer. I transformed into one ginormous Grumpy Bear that fails at promotion and never writes.

So, here’s my plan going forward. I will allow myself only one hour a week for the business side of publication. The rest of my time will be spent having fun—which mostly means writing, but also catching up on a couple other things I’ve put off for too long. Maybe I’ll even have time to play online again.

Promotion is a necessary evil, but only if I have a book to sell. If I don’t recapture that optimism, that glorious dream, I’m afraid I’ll give up writing completely … and that would be giving up on me.

Care Bears are copyrighted by American Greetings Corporation, Inc.

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Reading between the lines of reviews

Sometimes I read a bit of writing advice and get myself all a dither. This week has been one of those times. I read something the other day about the importance of understanding what readers like most about your writing, so you can play to that. Since I’m writing another novel, and I’d like it to be better than the last one, that sounded like good advice to me. Then came the questions.

Do I know what readers liked best about The Brevity of Roses? And isn’t there a related question—what did readers like least? What if the novel I’m working on right now, includes too much of what they didn’t like and too little of what they did?

So far, the reviews of that novel have been positive. That’s nice, but it’s also unfortunate. I’m happy about good reviews, of course, but I know many more people have read Brevity than have reviewed it. Some have let me know privately that they enjoyed it, but many many others have said nothing, publically or privately, since reading it.

I’m left to wonder. Did they hate it? Did they throw it across the room in frustration? Were they bored? Did they not even finish reading it? Did they laugh—when I didn’t intended them to? Do they regret wasting their time and money? Or maybe they loved it, but it didn’t occur to them to let me know in some way. Silence is maddening. It’s also unhelpful.

At this point, the bulk of Brevity’s reviews were written by fellow writers. I suspect the reviews from most of my writer friends are just as biased as those from my non-writer friends. Maybe more so because writers sympathize. They know the value of good reviews, not only to boost sales, but to boost a fragile writer’s confidence. But they also know how to write, so when I read my fellow authors’ reviews, I try to read between the lines. What didn’t they say, and does that point to what they didn’t like?

I know. I know. I’m supposed to be writing for readers, not other writers. But is there a writer out there who doesn’t want the respect of her peers? OH … wait … aren’t I supposed to be writing for ME? If I write what I love, won’t my readers love it too?

But wait … what if all those silent readers did hate my novel? And what if all my good reviews really were written out of sympathy? Maybe NO ONE really liked it. Maybe I’m a terrible writer. Maybe NO ONE will buy my next book. OH … wait … if that’s the case, I can write anything I want. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. Maybe I should turn off the computer and take up knitting instead.

Yeah, it’s been one of those weeks so far. But tomorrow (Thursday) I get to celebrate my anniversary with teppanyaki, so things are looking up.

How’s your week going?

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Ray Bradbury wrote this just for me!

If you’re a writer, I’m sure you’ve heard the terms plotter and pantser. For the non-writers: those terms refer to opposites in how much a writer prepares before he begins a work. Pantser comes from an aviation saying, “Fly by the seat of his pants.” meaning to fly on instinct alone, without instruments. (Finally looked that up.)

I’ve confessed to being a pantser, but the truth is, often my method is more like ultimate pantsing. I take the bare bones of a story idea and explore it—not before I write, but as I write. At first, I didn’t realize there was any other way to write. Then I decided to become a SERIOUS writer and bought book after book promising to teach me how to work like a real writer. Uh-oh.

I learned many useful things from these books, but some of the advice stymied my Muse. I hadn’t pre-written outlines, synopses, plot points charts, etc. for my many stories and one novel. And because I hadn’t followed those rules, I feared none of my work could possibly be any good. My hope for publication faded.

Then, a little over three years ago, I put my fingers to keyboard to elaborate on a dream I’d had and write it as a story. But the characters kept talking to me and the story grew. My dream turned into a novel. Some new writer friends thought it was a good novel. But I doubted their judgment because, again, I’d written mostly on instinct. In fact, most of the time, it felt as though I was only taking dictation. So how could it be good?

I’ve mentioned in a few recent posts that I was reading Ray Bradbury’s collection of essays on writing, Zen in the Art of Writing. I finally reached the last chapter and read something that, for me, surpassed all the bon mots I’d selected before. Mr. Bradbury didn’t know it, but he wrote the following part just for me:

The time will come when your characters will write your stories for you, when your emotions, free of literary cant and commercial bias, will blast the page and tell the truth.

Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.

So, stand aside, forget targets, let the characters, your fingers, body, blood, and heart do.

Sha-zam! A celebrated writer had validated my method. It may not be every writer’s way, but it’s right for me. I no longer have to doubt the value of a story just because it seemed to write itself. Of course, not everything I write will work, but if it fails, it won’t be because I flew without instruments. It will be because I didn’t “stand aside” enough to let my “fingers, body, blood, and heart do”.

What say ye? Does Bradbury’s advice make your heart sing or shudder?


Photo credits: Anne Burgess – Creative Commons License

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Organizing your writing projects

I used Word to write The Brevity of Roses. I already had a Documents folder labeled Writing with a sub-folder labeled Short Stories. That’s where I saved the story To Be Missed, which is what later became the novel. As the “story” grew, so did the files associated with it, eventually I moved all of them out of the story folder into their own sub-folder within my Novels folder.

Very soon, the Brevity folder spawned sub-folders, some of which spawned their own sub-folders. At that point, it took a bit of effort to navigate the maze to find any particular “notes” or “scenes” or “character” files I needed. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Then, I heard about free writing organization software and tried a couple of them. For one reason or another, I didn’t feel they worked for me.  Now, I’m trying Scrivener for Windows beta. (The Mac version has been around for ages.)

The program is more functional for me as well as more intuitive. For me, it’s a big time saver. My book text, scenes file, character sketches, notes of every kind, even reference photos and videos are all in one file. Click.

That’s not to say I’m a whiz at Scrivener for Windows. I’m still learning. Since it’s a beta version, each new update adds functionality, so it’s even better than when I first tried it last fall. I’m saving my pennies to buy the full version because I believe Scrivener is my answer to organizing each writing project.

Let’s discuss how to organize writing projects. Do you use writing software? Are you so well-organized in your word processing program that’s all you need? Do you click back and forth between an organizer and a word-processor?