After a year’s hiatus, I came back to publishing to a whole new world. Many of the authors I had followed were no longer publishing. The ones still around either rocketed to stardom or cut comfortable corners into their perspective niches. Many of the methods I had utilized at the start of my career were null and void, I just wasn’t aware until it was too late.
About a month before watching Cathy Hay's video, I pulled out my high school journals "for research." I've had an idea for a YA novel/novella series for some time, but I wanted to step back into the shoes of Fifteen. Boy, did my journals deliver.
It's hard writing into the void sometimes. With traditional and original fiction, you often write something that people may or not read. Then they may or may not leave a review. If they bother leaving a review (this is not counting book bloggers btw) that's either because they loved your story, or they hated it. The average G.I. Jane doesn't review unless your story moved them to a strong feeling.
When you write, you tend to spend a lot of time in your head, and it’s easy to become discouraged and disheartened. It’s even easier to fall into a pit that doesn’t seem to have a way out.
One thing I hope you take away from my meanderings, is to enjoy your life. Don't beat yourself up for missing the occasional deadline or falling out of habits. Sometimes, we structure our lives too much, so much that we forget how to be part of the world outside our screens. I hope you find ways to surround yourself with beauty this week. I hope you are inspired 🙂
I like to think of a mailing list like a tree farm. If you let all the undergrowth fill up between the trees, they won't grow nearly as thick or tall. They'll always be competing with the little offshoots and filler. But if you cut away the underbrush, you can see the forest through the trees.
One thing I hope you take away from my meanderings, is to enjoy your life. Don't beat yourself up for missing the occasional deadline or falling out of habits. Sometimes, we structure our lives too much, so much that we forget how to be part of the world outside our screens. I hope you find ways to surround yourself with beauty this week. I hope you are inspired 🙂
How do you tackle a sequel? Not just any sequel, either, but to your first big book baby? In 2017, I decided to finally act and rewrite/revise Silver Hollow. In the process, I started to plan ahead for what I hope to be many sequels (6 seasons and a movie! ;p j/k). I would love to say the road was easy-going, but when is it ever easy for an Indie?
You can’t totally escape the ugliness of this world. It’s all around us, sometimes within us. But it isn’t what needs to define us. If you’re brave enough, and allow yourself to be vulnerable enough, you can and will overcome it. But don’t do it alone.
witter (ˈwɪtə) vb - (often foll by: on) to chatter or babble pointlessly or at unnecessary length n - pointless chat; chatter Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014 If your week has been anything like mine, you've scarcely had a... Continue Reading →
Jennifer Silverwood 