Blogging ideas

Having a blog is a necessity for an author. Not only do you practice writing, you reach potential readers and grow a following. But keeping a blog can also be stressful. That blog can become an entity you have to feed with daily posts.

Victoria Grefer wrote a great post with three great tips on being more efficient blogger. Efficiency is great for me because I keep a blog and I’m always grateful for ideas or ways to improve it.

I have to admit I already used her idea of writing the posts ahead of time. I write my posts on Saturday mornings. I try to write the entire week’s worth of posts. The only one I can’t is the ‘Posts I loved this week’ because that, by necessity, grows each day. Now, that doesn’t mean that, should something interesting happen, I don’t ignore my ‘saved’ posts and write a new one, I do, but I have some in ‘reserve’ should I need them.

What about you? What works for you? Do you go with inspiration or do you prep ahead?

 

 

Header?

Okay, I’m having too much fun with the header. Any thoughts? I’ve got number 5 on right now…but I have no real idea.

Here are the choices…

1.

2.3.4.5.6.

Any preferences?

Okay, I know…I should be writing. I know…I know! I’m heading right there…Oops! Heading!  🙂

PS. By the way, I got these from this post!

 

On editing

I’m editing. And it’s hell. I don’t think I’m alone when I curse and grumble about it. But, really, let’s just say it. Editing sucks.

All those wonderful chapters that seemed written by Shakespeare only days ago, have magically turned into a mess. I blame my brain. Back when I wrote them, I had my Creative Brain on and I thought the stuff was pretty good. Now, with my critical Editorial Cap on, it’s just awful. 

I have to re-read it, change words, then ask myself what the sweet heavens I was trying to say in that convoluted, unending, tongue-twister of a paragraph. Somehow, I have to transform that soup of words into actual English so people will want to read it and not burst into tears. I curse, grumble, pray for inspiration and write away. I cut things, add words, change adverbs and add plurals when needed until I can read it. Until it flows and it says what it was supposed to say. With pizzaz.

Then, I go to the next one.

Today I chomped my way through an entire chapter. But most days it’s one scene at a time. The worst is coming though. I know I’ll have to go through this process a couple of times before the book is remotely to my standards. Perfectionism sucks.

Then I had a thought: What would it be like to write perfectly? What if we could write without having to edit? Do the Greats manage that? Does Nora Roberts type flawlessly on her computer in one endless, grammatically-perfect, flowing example of immaculate fiction? Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Just imagine…no editing…Ahhh.

Night-time writing

My best ideas often come at night. Right when I should be dozing off, ready for dream-land, I close my eyes…and finally see how my heroine is going to face her fears or I finally know where the climax of my book will be or I finally get what drives my villain.

I’ve tried ignoring them thinking I’ll remember them in the morning. Nope. The paths connecting the issue with the solution, so clear as I dozed off, were impossible to remember in the clarity of the morning. No amount of coffee could resuscitate my memory either.

I’ve ignored them thinking they weren’t that important or good…only to curse for days while my waking mind tried to recreate them. It took me weeks to finally remember.

As I write this I’m reminded of the story of Scheherazade and the muses who whispered stories for her to entertain the sultan but did so only at night. While I’m no Scheherazade, able to magically capture the attention of my audience until daylight, I certainly don’t want to snub my nose at inspiration. I do get ideas in the daytime–certainly I get them at the most inconvenient times, like while driving or while at a work meeting–but the best ones often occur to me at night.

I have no idea why enlightenment comes just as I’m about to lose consciousness. Maybe because the mind is relaxed and open to Karma? Who knows and really, who cares. It’s like the inside of my laptop, I have no idea how it works, I’m just glad it does.

Still, years and years of this happening and I never once thought to put a notebook by my bedside. Not once. I have one now thanks to my husband who, hearing me moaning about a lost idea, put one there. I remember I thanked him while secretly convinced I wasn’t going to need it…

Until that night.

(credit:iloveretro.tumblr.com)