Making connections
Writing can be a rather lonely pursuit most of the time. The writer needs to fully concentrate on the task at hand and spend many hours alone getting words down on paper (or at least on the hard-drive). Seminars and conferences are fine for mixing with other writers, publishers and agents. If a writer becomes a conference junkie, or tries to attend every seminar, workshop or festival there is often little time left for the real work of being a writer.
The real work of being a writer – is writing. There is no easy way out. To write a 100,000 word novel, the writer has to write down or type every word. There is no easy path to success. It is a hard slog, and can be very lonely.
Blogging can be different
Writing a blog can be a quite different. One of the delights I have discovered with blogging is the sense of community that develops. On my three blogs I have a very real sense of a community of readers developing as the weeks go by. More and more people are coming to visit, to revisit, to comment and even start up conversations with me via email.
Making Connections
It is the connections we make with one another via our blogs that fascinate and excite me. In recent days I have have the delight of two significant blogs making a link with this blog, and writing some flattering comments about my blog on their blogs.
My special thanks to Rick and Anne. (Sorry – the link to Rick’s site no longer works.)
Related links:
- The Golden Pencil – Anne Wayman – the Freelance Writer’s Resource.
Updated November 2013.
What inspires you to write or blog?
Darren Rowse on ProBlogger has written an interesting and thought provoking article called Expertise, Knowledge and Intuition in Blogging. He writes about what inspires him, where he gets his inspiration and how much intuition plays a part in his writing and blogging.
He poses the questions
- How much knowledge do you have on your topics?
- Where does your inspiration and knowledge come from?
- How much do you rely upon intuition?
I happened to be the first to comment on this post and in part my comments are posted below.
Intuition only plays a small part in my blogging, in that I sometimes know intuitively what my readers are interested in reading. Feedback through comments is a good guide here.
On my birding blog (Trevor’s Birding) I mainly rely on my knowledge base gained over thirty plus years of going out into the field and actually watching birds. A lifetime of experience to draw upon is invaluable and can give one’s writing something of a voice of authority.
This vast amount of experience is backed up by the same number of years studying books, referring to field guides, reading magazines and participating in forums and newsgroups on the internet over the last ten years. I also attend the local birders monthly meetings but not as frequently as I’d like due to distance.
My main inspiration comes from what is right in our garden. The constant activity in our garden is a rich lode I mine frequently for inspiration. Wherever I travel I record what I see, drawing constantly on those observations for my blog writing. Most writing books and many articles about writing urge one to Write What You Know.
What I hope emerges in my writing is a passion for my subject, and a deep desire to share that with my rapidly growing number of readers.
Related articles:
Are you a failure?
Writers are often, by nature, an introspective lot.
Navel gazers.
I would guess that many have a reasonably poor self image. This is compounded by depression, something some well-known writers and many not-so-well-known writers suffer constantly from – or at least periodically.
A sense of failure as a writer can be only a fleeting thought away. A regular barrage of rejection letters from publishers fans the flames of feeling a failure.
Consider then this quote from Ashleigh Brilliant:
You’re never a total failure while someone believes in you – even if the only someone is you.
Believe in yourself.
Hard to do when you are feeling down.
Hard to do when you are feeling rejected.
Hard to do when failure looms strong in your mind.
The Magic of Momentum
A writer who has a sense of failure also lacks momentum. Momentum is interesting. It takes a huge amount of energy to get a train moving, but once it is moving it takes far less energy to keep it moving. It seems as if momentum creates an energy of its own.
Start writing – and keep writing. It may be just rubbish at first, but eventually the momentum of the very act of writing creates its own energy. Then the creative energy is released and the words begin to flow. Get those blog entries posted. Send out those poems or stories to publishers. Keep writing, writing, writing.
And when a negative comment appears on your blog, or a rejection letter comes from a publisher, they’d better get out of the way. This ol’ train’s gonna crash right through them.
The Importance of Proofreading
I love creating new stories, articles, poems and blog entries. What I don’t enjoy is proofreading them afterwards. I find it tedious. I sometimes even find it a tad boring. I know how the story ends. Or I want to get on with the next project.
Over the last six months I have written a total of over 500 articles on my three blogs. In that time I have learned of the importance of proofreading. When you write so much you must spend to time and effort on getting your writing as near to correct as you can given the time restraints. This has taught me the importance of rapid proofreading. I know I still miss things, small typos, missed words and so on. But I am getting better. With fewer mistakes. It takes effort – but it is still a little tedious.
Anne, on her blog The Golden Pencil has written a post about “How to Proofread Your Own Writing.” She has given some very good strategies on this topic.
Related article:
Are you a blogging maniac?
Sometimes I struggle to keep up with writing regularly on my three blogs, attending to my non-blogging writing, reading my emails, doing research on the internet and remembering to have a life. Oh – and do the gardening too.
It was in that context that I identified with Tammy on her Jewelry and Beading post called “Become a Blogging Maniac“. She describes her demanding writing schedule, writing four blogs, magazine articles, writing books, working part-time.
Tammy explains some helpful hints in her article on the following topics:
- How to schedule your day/week
- Using warm-up exercises to keep your writing voice in trim
- The importance of immersing yourself in your topic
- Daily maintenance of you blog(s)
She makes some very valuable points.