Are You Wasting Time Reading...?

The complete question reads like this: Are you wasting time reading about writing when you should be writing? This awful question reared its ugly head when I began packing to move house. Ah yes, the joys of moving. I think it’s number two on the list of Most Terrible Things To Happen In Life. Along with death and divorce, moving house is one of the most traumatic experiences known to man, woman, and writer. Of course, there’s always the chance that while packing, as you scrabble among the dust balls under your desk, you might just find a vital piece of paper with a plot link you thought of in the middle of the night, wrote down, but then couldn’t find... There’s also the chance you could find money, the winning lottery ticket, or the missing library book that has accumulated thousands in fines...

However, the worst part of moving is thinking about what you have been doing for the past few months. Is there a link? Yes, for me there is. You see, I can’t move into my beautiful new house yet, the one with a stunning TWO (yes, two) room office. This is an incredible step up as far as office space goes, and I just can’t wait to fill it with books, lost library books, missing pieces of paper, and dust balls (My housekeeper very wisely put a clause in her contract that prevents her from cleaning my current office and I guess it extends to the new one...) How is this connected to what I have (not) been doing for the past few months? Let me explain. Alas, I have to camp out in a rented flat for two months while the current owners make their own moving arrangements. This means no access to the Internet unless I go down the road to an Internet cafe and log on. So, I’ll only be doing that once or twice a week. I decided I should pare down my subscriptions. It was a shock to find out just how much mail I was receiving.

Last week I did not open my email for two days. When I did, there were over 100 messages in my inbox. Apart from the ever-present ‘you have won the UK lottery’ spam mail, I found I had recklessly subscribed to just about anything that had ever presented me with an interesting article. I was receiving mail from all sorts of blogs and newsletters, some with remarkable articles, some with run-of-the-mill stuff. In my eagerness to learn more about honing my writing skills and developing a marketing strategy, I had accumulated so many subscriptions that basically my time on emails had gone from 10-15 minutes every morning to 90 minutes. Unacceptable. I was spending more time reading about writing than actually doing any writing.

I also found that while many of these articles were extremely informative, I had begun to question my writing, my characters, the back story, the inner story, the action, the dialogue, the adjectives, the adverbs ... I had begun to tear my writing apart. So, I had to cut off the source of my addiction and ... unsubscribe! I have, however, kept the few stalwarts that I began with. I expect that once I am settled in my new abode I shall be tempted to start subscribing again. But my resolve is firm: forge ahead with more writing, and not so much reading about writing. I shall leave the ‘fixing’ to my editor!

Here’s my TOP Ten List of best blogs, sites and newsletters about writing and marketing. I just know I will start adding to my list again....

• Adventures in Children's Publishing
• Daily Writing Tips
• Nathan Bransford Blog (Nathan Bransford)
• WordPlay (K.M Weiland)
• Book Marketing Maven (Dana Lynn Smith)
• The Creative Penn (Joanna Penn)
• Author Marketing Expert (Penny Sansevieri)
• Marketing Tips for Authors (Tony Eldridge)
• Writers Digest
• Book2Book

Generality Is the Death of the Novel

Generality Is the Death of the Novel

Another great post by K.M. Weiland and one that is particularly pertinent to filling in the blanks in one's novel for the reader, or else making a character jump from flat to full. In this post the writer discusses how tiny, perhaps inconsequential details, make up the portrait of a scene or a character, filling it out and breathing life into those pages. Is it important that your character does certain things, likes a particular kind of biscuit with his tea, or has a penchant for scruffy tracksuits? You might not think so, but perhaps these tiny details add immeasurably to the back story you're trying to feed into the plot. Relook at your characters and get to know them as old friends, with all the quirks you already enjoy and love about your real old friends.

On the other hand, attention to detail can also drag down your plot or slow the action. A good guide line when considering piling on more detail is this: does it add to the plot? Does this figure in my readers' understanding of the story and the characters' motivations? If not, leave it out. I once began a book which I have no doubt would have been interesting, but I could not get past the first few chapters. The author took the reader on a painful journey from the moment the main character opened his eyes, through to the shower, into the kitchen, describing in minute detail how he made a cup of coffee, how long it took him to dress, his decisions on what socks to wear etc. Eventually I had to give up: I was drowning in minutae that had absolutely no bearing on the book. Unless, of course, the main character had obsessive compulsive disorder, but alas I didn't read long enough to find out.