Here are some things that I’ve seen around the neighborhood of the Blogistan Writing Community:
- Briana Morgan released her first book, Blood and Water, a month or two back (I read several chapters of it in draft, and if the final version — which is on my To Read list — is as good, it’s a keeper), and now she is selling signed copies. (Note to self: Get off arse and start offering signed copies!)
- Ksenia Anske (whose site needs to be on your “Visit several times weekly” list now) has thoughts on how writers shoot themselves in the foot by not making their books discoverable.
- Shelly Muncaster has reasons for not doing NaNoWriMo. She makes an important point: NaNoWriMo might not be for you. If you’re genuinely vexed by it, there is zero shame in not participating! NaNoWriMo should be a source of fun and good work and camaraderie, not for beating oneself up.
- EJ Fisch discusses, amongst other things, how she has used her workspace in her day job as a way of marketing herself as a writer. This reminds me of something I read in a book years ago, which was assigned reading for a sales job I had. (I was terrible at it and eventually got fired, but that’s a tale for another time.) The guy writing the book discussed how he put his sales award certificates and photos of himself meeting various dignitaries on the wall behind his desk, so his prospects could see them as he talked with them. He was using his own walls as sales space. Always a good idea! I’m not sure how well I could do this sort of thing at my workplace — my own workspace is very tiny, with almost no wall space to speak of — but it’s worth thinking about.
- SK Waller (one of the first writing-peeps I ever met, over ten years ago, in the course of blogging!), had some observations on how trying NaNoWriMo impacted her own usual process. She’s not a plow-ahead-and-revise-later type of writer, so she had some trouble getting out of the block. (She did eventually win, though!)
That’s about all for now. Moving forward, I’ll try to do more of this sort of thing. Excelsior, Stardancers!
