I've had it on good authority that blogging about writing will actually help with the writing.
So here I am, and here this is - the first of (hopefully) many posts in a blog charting my journey from unknown wannabe to international bestselling literary titan. Ahem
I'm a thirty-something father of two with a great wife and a steady desk job in a nice, comfy office. But like you, I'm also an amateur writer (albeit a keen one), with a dream of getting paid to do what I love. Also like you, I've found that life gets in the way of a proper writing routine. Chores need choring, jobs need jobbing, kids need feeding, and eventually sleep must be slept. There just aren't enough hours in the day.
But still it's been impossible to give up. Sometimes the need to write, the physical need, takes over and I find myself scribbling away again, furiously jotting down my latest wonderful idea before I explode, or bashing away at the keyboard until something else more prosaic comes along that needs urgent attention, like nappy-changing time.
You know how it is. I know you know because you've done exactly the same thing yourself. We've all got half-finished stories or half-finished novels squirreled away in a whole bunch of battered notebooks or scattered across several thumb drives. For my part, I've only ever finished two short stories to date, along with about 38,000 words of a novel that I'd outlined in perfect detail from beginning to end and fleshed out with character notes and exhaustive worldbuilding notes too. Then I tossed it because it all sounded like such a pile of steaming horse-apples. You've been there, I know.
Now I'm working on a new novel, and this time I'm determined to finish it.
James Patterson once said that writers should aim to complete just a single page a day, no matter what. "If you aren't writing at least that one page every day," he said, "your novel's never going to get done." So now I'm aiming for a modest five hundred words a day, with a grand total of 90,000 words. It won't be easy, I know, but then nothing really worthwhile in life ever is.
Anyway the journey starts here. Hope you'll stick with me and find out how it ends...
-Bibliovore-
13 years ago
Welcome to the blogosphere, good sir. I'll mention this now, 'cause it might not otherwise become apparent until a ways down the line: blogging both helps and harms your writing. It helps because it fosters discipline in writing and posting on a regular basis. It harms because it's easy to get caught up in the social aspect of it and end up with diminished time for working on your novel.
ReplyDeleteDon't let that discourage you, though. There's a wonderful, accepting writing community online that's more than willing to offer advice, hints, and critiques. I've met some fantastic people online, and the publicity aspect of a blog is not to be overlooked.
I wish you the best of luck, my good man.