Writing Recap: 2012

Here’s what I accomplished on the writing front last year…

As I mentioned on Wednesday, I knew the year was going to be full of good but intense Life stuff (like buying my first house), so I let myself off the hook for writing in 2012. That said, I’m pretty pleased with what I did manage.

I started the year by signing up for a class on blogging for writers by Kristen Lamb. I’d been wanting to up my game and learn how to present myself as a professional writer, especially since the founding of Turtleduck Press. The class did that, all right. It also connected me with an awesome community of writers. And I’ve now been blogging for almost a year.

That means I:

• set myself a goal and deadlines, and met them consistently all year long
• successfully avoided beating myself up (equally important!) on the few occasions when I missed my self-imposed goals
• learned how to blog – to turn out good (I hope) material in my own voice and with an appropriate length, structure, and tone for the form
• wrote 1000–2000 words on the blog just about every week this year
• continued building a platform and networking

WIP Blog Hop: The Derelict

The lovely and hardworking authoress KD Sarge tagged me for a blog hop, so here it is. You answer ten questions about your work in progress (WIP) and tag five other writers. So here’s a sneak peek at one of my novels….

1. What is the working title of your book?

The Derelict.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

This is one of those rare novels for which I can point to the exact origin. In an article on Tor.com a few years ago, Chris Greenland discussed concepts for a future Star Trek series. He threw out the idea of a dystopian universe where the Trek era constituted a lost Golden Age, thought to be no more than a legend and a possible inspiration for our intrepid heroes. I ran with the idea, transplanted it into an original (i.e., non-Trek) universe, and off I went.

Should You Do NaNoWriMo?

Aaaaand I’m back to my regular Monday-Wednesday-Friday posting schedule! Thanks for your patience during the downtime…

It’s that time of year again. Excited chatter is building across the Internet, preparations are being made, supplies are being bought. Yes, National Novel Writing Month is coming up.

You’ve probably heard of it, even if you haven’t participated. The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in the month of November — 1,667 words a day. To support this goal, participants are encouraged to go to local in-person meet-ups or hang out on the website’s forums. The prize for finishing? A certificate and bragging rights — nothing more, nothing less.

But how do you know if NaNoWriMo is for you?

Structuring a Writing Retreat

First, a housekeeping note. Apologies for the lack of posts last week…I knew I was going to be away, but ran out of time to pre-write and schedule posts as intended. At least fellow writer Erin Zarro was here to keep the blog from going dark!

It’s Media Monday here on the blog. I usually blog from the perspective of a reader and fan, but today I’m going to talk writing…

Last year’s writing cabin | Copyright Siri Paulson 2011

I’ve just returned from a glorious week of living in a cabin (cottage if you’re an Ontarian) by a lake for my writing group’s annual retreat.We’re only eight people, so our retreat isn’t fancy — no workshops or guest lectures or anything like that. But we’ve been doing it since 2007, and we’ve got it down to an art now. Here’s what works for us. (Your mileage may vary, etc., etc.)

We rent a cabin for a week. Our requirements include plenty of bedrooms (most of our members prefer to have their own), a well-equipped kitchen, and a lakefront lot with plenty of trees and privacy. Cabins that have all of these also tend to have plenty of writing spaces — indoors, on the deck, on the dock, or elsewhere on the land. One thing we try not to get is wifi. So far we’ve gone to a different cabin every year, but the last two were pretty spectacular (while still affordable, since the rental cost is split so many ways), so we may well make a repeat visit.

Link: What Does a Writer Do When Not Writing?

Just a quick note today. I’m blogging over at Turtleduck Press about how I’m not able to write fiction at the moment, and what I’m doing instead to feed my soul…

Blog posts are keeping me sane. The act of putting one word after another, of making a coherent argument or narrative in a set length, of finding the right phrasing, is something my soul needs. Blogging takes less mental energy than fiction, and I can knock out a finished piece in a few hours, so it’s staying in my life.

Other kinds of art are happening, ones where there’s no pressure to be publishable or even particularly good. I’m knitting and contra dancing and working on learning to waltz. These things still put me in the state of flow the way writing (ideally) does, and that’s good for my mental health.

Go read the rest at Turtleduck Press!