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Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Keeping the Fun in Writing

(This post was supposed to go live at the end of January, but I saved it as a draft instead of publishing it. Apologies for the inconvenience. I did manage to finish the story I mention below.)

It occurred to me recently that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my first attempt to write a novel (at least, I'm pretty sure it was in 1994 during an internship.) I actually still have a paper copy of that draft, though it's destined for the shredder. While my writing career is nowhere near what I thought it would like at this point in my life, at least I'm still writing. I think the advent of indie publishing has a great deal to do with that. It's encouraging to know I can always make my work available to readers. I also have the freedom to experiment. Right now, I'm finishing up a Good Omens fan fiction story that's told in present tense, which is something I don't normally use in my other stories. It's an alternative universe story, which means that I've changed a major premise while still writing with the same characters. This allows me to take the characters in vastly different directions and do crazy things with them. It's fun to write, and I'm getting comments that readers enjoy it. Hopefully at some point, I'll return to my Season Avatars, solarpunk, and cozy mystery stories as well. That's why I always wanted to be a full-time writer: so I can work on all the projects I want to write!

Have you gone through periods where you didn't want to write? What keeps writing fun for you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Wednesday, February 07, 2024

IWSG: Writer Websites

Here we are at February and another post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them at their website or Facebook page
Here's our question for the month: What turns you off when visiting an author's website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author's books? Constant mention of books?
My least favorite thing about visiting website isn't listed above or unique to author websites. It's a popup that appears as soon as I enter the website. I'm not going to sign up for a newsletter until I've had a chance to view the website and decide if I'm interested, so I'll always remove the popup. To be honest, I don't pay much attention to the newsletters I'm subscribed to. (I'm not good about sending out newsletters anyway; even when I do, they generate more unsubscribes than sales.) As a reader, I mainly want to know when the author's next book is coming out so I can preorder it if I'm interested.
Let's turn the question around: what motivates you to look at author websites in the first place? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.