So
things have been pretty hectic around here. But then, they usually are. There
are always people coming and going. I have a day job. I have a small business I
run in my spare time. I have a beautiful new granddaughter. I have two lovely
daughters both of whom are fairly newly married. I have an incredible husband
and some very good friends. I love to quilt, doodle, crochet and do a wicked
amount of other crafty and creative things. Sometimes, I even hit the gym or go
for a walk. The trouble is that all these things tangle together and get into
each other’s way. But mostly, they get in the way of my writing.
Yes, I
am fully aware that I choose which things to spend time on, and which to kick
to the curb for a while. When writing gets pushed aside, it is more likely that
I will ignore my blogs than my works of fiction.
In spite
of the fact that writing is sometimes painfully like stripping your soul bare
and beating your head into a rock, I find time almost every day to scratch down
some ideas or to putter away at one of my current fiction works in progress.
Some days the writing is brutal and terrible to read, put I plug away anyhow
and do my best to get words onto paper (metaphorically speaking.) When those
words are not fit to be read, they get rewritten or deleted entirely the next
time I work on that story. If the scene or idea doesn’t fit that story, it gets cut and saved elsewhere.
I really
do try to do a blog post weekly, though clearly that isn’t happening. Today I
asked myself why writing a blog post was so different from writing a story.
Here’s what I came up with. When I am working on a novel, it gets written,
rewritten, edited, tweaked, proofread, fiddled with, scrubbed and polished. A
blog post gets written, edited and posted. Mine are the only eyes that see it
before yours do. A novel sees mine (over and over and over), several beta
readers, several proof readers and on occasion a reviewer or two before it hits
the public eye.
Comparatively
speaking, I probably write 20,000 story words for every blog post I write. By
that I mean words worth keeping. At the end of a writing day, I probably only
keep about half of the words I type. I write, revise and review. Then, when I
fire up the story the next time, I scroll back a couple dozen pages and start
re-reading. This serves a number of purposes.
1. It gets me into the flow of the
story so that my tone is the same and the mood isn’t killed.
2. It helps me find gross errors.
3. It refreshes my memory on where I
was going.
4. I find places where what I think
I wrote and what I did write are entirely different.
5. It helps me eliminate total
drivel not worthy or reading.
6. It helps me find good plot bits
that are not quite right for the story but are worth saving.
The
lowly blog post doesn’t get such lofty treatment. Sure, there are a few that
get puttered away at over time, but mostly they are off the cuff, rambling and
rather pointless. They are kind of a peek into the insanity that is my thought
process.
The
other thing is those story ideas come to me from out of nowhere. I’ll be
walking along and an idea will just explode into my head. Often I have to stop
and scratch down some notes or a bit of dialogue so I don’t forget the idea.
Blog post ideas are harder to come by. I want to come off as reasonably
intelligent. I don’t want you to know that I am flying by the seat of my pants
and making shit up as I go along. So I have to plan blog posts ahead and
frankly sometimes my post ideas aren’t all that good. Sometimes I don’t have any
ideas at all.
It
really isn’t fair to my blog readers. They deserve better. They deserve posts
that are meaningful, insightful, thought provoking or at least entertaining.
What they get is the usual drivel that drifted unattended through my mind. They
get a look at who I really am and I’m not altogether sure that is a good thing.
I want them to think of me as Danielle Steel, Stephen King, JK Rowling or other
lofty, famous writers. I want a bit of mystique and a devoted following of
slathering fans.
How selfish
and vain is that?
Funny
how most of us want our five minutes of fame.
Not that I ever expect to become famous … and since I am more likely to
become famous from writing stories than from writing blog posts, you can expect
these posts to remain sporadic and somewhat random in content and format.
Hugs
Katie
