Things that Distract

I’m doing that thing that my wife hates. I’m writing blog posts during writing group. She’s sitting across from me right now. I don’t think she’s noticed yet so I’m going to write quick.

It’s occurred to me that I’ve delved deep into the ephemera of the writer life without really meaning to. I think if you get half way serious about trying to get a book published you’ll run yourself neck deep into the many many things that surround the publishing industry and everyone who participates, or tries to participate, in it. It’s a mixture of people trying to be helpful, people trying to get some of your money, people preaching, and people shouting about success or failure all day every day all over the world.

My writing path started with writing at home. That led me to find NaNoWriMo as I was looking for motivation. That led me to local write-ins and forming a writing group. The writing group led to talking about writing at least once a week, and of course that wasn’t enough. So then I was getting into online communities to talk about writing more. That’s when you start to get the drip drip drip of the twenty four hour news cycle of publishing and the drama of twitter communities at war with each other and burning themselves down and building new things. Then you find writing workshops. Then before you know it you’re snorkeling with Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells on a cruise ship and you look around and realize that you haven’t written any thing in months.

It gets even harder once you’ve actually finished a novel. Then you go digging for everyone who’s got the ten steps to a perfect query letters. Then you pay someone ten dollars to sit and listen to your pitch for fifteen minutes and then smile and nicely ask for your manuscript and then you pine at the window for a year while the silence from your inbox consumes you. Sigh…..ok that one might just be me.

I think this year I would like to try and get back to just writing. Try not to worry about how publishable something is, or what the query letter is going to look like, or how much time am I going to have to commit to marketing if I self publish. Kickstarter? Online critique group. Wait they said what about that new book!?

….sigh. Maybe I should buy a typewriter and disconnect the internet from my life. I don’t know. I do know that I enjoy writing. I’m not sure I enjoy all that other stuff. Except my writing group. I should probably pay attention again. I think they noticed :p