What I've Learned

My blog has been neglected lately. I have no excuses because every single writer that I know has an insanely busy and chaotic life. You have my permission to call me lazy.

Over the past several months I have taken tons of workshops, along with dealing with a son having ACL surgery, painting several rooms in the house (including my den where I do everything), and drama with a friend. So, what have I learned along the way?

• I definitely need more practice painting or I need to just let my husband do it.

• When you know that a friendship is over, let it die a natural death. Even if the other party keeps trying to prolong the agony.

• When you have a son that is having his "First. Surgery. Ever. mom", even if it is the third surgery of the same type in your household, don't act like it's routine. 

Oh, wait...you wanted what I learned about writing? Hmm, well okay...

•  The internet is evil. Mostly.

• I really need to stop procrastinating and just write.

• Fear only has as much power as I give it.

• I don't know nearly as much about writing as I thought I did.

• You can never do enough research. So stop researching, thinking that you'll get to that point where you have enough, and just write.

• Nobody, not even published authors, write a good first draft. 

• Just get it down. Stop letting the fear control you.

• Deep POV is harder to write than you would think when you've grown up reading something different. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Same with show vs. tell.

• Even published authors struggle and doubt.

• The writing community is the most supportive and greatest that I have ever found. I need to let new experiences cast out the old. 

• Being busy is just an excuse. Stop making excuses. Everybody is busy.

 So that's what I've learned. Now I just have to learn to implement all these little nuggets of wisdom into my daily life. :)

What's the most useful thing you've learned on your path to writing (or being published)?

Happy Easter to everyone!

full circle

And here we are again.

Well, we bought our house and moved. And I could come up with a whole list of excuses as to why I haven't been here or why I haven't written, but what's the point. The main reason is fear. I've admitted that before I just haven't done anything to overcome it. I think I finally have figured out where it stems from at least. Several years ago I was in another writing group where one of the ladies in the group (a published author) totally trashed my writing. She basically told me that I had no talent and that my stories were too character driven and that character driven stories are no good, don't sell and are basically a cop out for untalented writers. That's about when I stopped writing.

Now, just because I've stopped writing doesn't mean that the people in my head have stopped bugging me. To be honest, it's driving me a little batty. So I need to remedy this. Every minute of the day I'm eavesdropping on conversations in my head. I'm seeing scenes that need to be put on paper. Seriously. Every minute. Try doing that for a day. Then try doing it for an infinite period of time. White jacket anyone?

Recently, my friends over at the Savvy Authors website sent me an invitation to join the yahoo group. It has many of the same people but now it's in my face in my inbox every morning. Staring back at me. Saying "what the hell, woman??? Why aren't you writing?? All these other people can do it, so can you!"

I signed up for a class on how to get inside a criminals mind so that I can better understand my villain. The class is fascinating. I've read their blogs. I've read other blogs on that some of these same people have written about writers block and how to overcome it. I've tried a couple of their methods. And I'm working on it.

I have a new mantra. I repeat to myself in the mornings. "I am a writer."

I joined the Winter Writing Festival over at Ruby Slippered-Sisterhood website. I have set goals for the next two months or so and I'm sticking to them. Heck, I could even win a prize if I stick to them. What better motivation?

I hate being so unsure of myself. In any aspect of my life. If you knew me, you would know that me being unsure about anything is so not me. I'm a fairly confident, opinionated person. And I'm not afraid to be the one to stand up and act silly. My philosophy is all about enjoying life. Except this part, apparently.

I'm working on it.

Have you ever had writer's block? What did you do to overcome it? Do you really think that it was a "block" or was it fear or procrastination? Or something else entirely? Share...maybe it will help....

Image obtained here

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.