Friday, February 26, 2010

Out of hiding...

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote anything here! Yes, I sort of gave up on the writing for a while. Oh, it was never far from my mind...but I just couldn't seem to make myself sit and write anything. Fear? Writer's block? Maybe a little bit of both.

Somehow, I found my way to a website a few months back of an author named Holly Lisle. To be perfectly honest, I've never read any of her work but her website has been helpful. I also signed up for her newsletter and recently found out that she is hosting this workshop about editing. In following the link to the site that is hosting the workshop I found a plethora of other workshops, and many of them were being offered free to members of the site! Just the thing I needed to give me a kick in the ass to get writing, I decided. So I joined the website and signed up for a bunch of the workshops.

Where is this magical place, you might be wondering? Well, it's at SavvyAuthors.com. The cost of joining the website is $30 for a year, which considering the number of workshops I'm getting for free is well worth it. They have other workshops that they host as well that there is a small charge for, but they typically only range from $5-$15 for their members. It gives you the chance to mingle with other writers, both published and just starting out, they have worksheets for character building and a database of editors/publishers. Most of the workshops are hosted by published authors as well.

The workshops that I have signed up for? Well, they are hosting what they are calling the 2010 Writers' Boot Camp, which includes several workshops and some free book and software raffles. So far I have signed up for the following:

  • Assaulting A Writer's Thinking
  • How, When and Why to Change Point of View Mid-Scene
  • Foreshadowing
  • Before Copy-Editing
  • How To Promote When You Don't Know How
  • Editing & Book Design
  • Crash Revisions
  • Promoting With Social Media
  • Ten Ugly Truths About Publishing

Now, granted I'm not so far into my writing that I need some of these workshops but I figured they are free so I might as well take advantage of them!

One of the first things discussed in the current workshop was setting goals. Another thing touched on was the importance of networking and using blogging as a tool to get our presence out on the internet. So one of my goals was to start blogging more. I'm going to try to stick with that. My problem is that I just usually don't have much to say that I think anybody cares about! I'll have to work on that.

That, and oh yeah...my habit of procrastinating. Procrastinating won't get my book written!

Neither will thinking about what I want to write as I go to bed at night, drive in the car or take a shower.

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