Spinning My Wheels

I don’t know where to go from here.

Do I start a new story unrelated to everything I already have going?  Do I finish something I’ve already started?  One of the short stories perhaps.  Or the sequel to Out of the Blue.  Do I give a side character from Her Unexpected Life a story of their own?

I could just take a break for a while and wait till I get ready but I may never get ready.  I could wait till I hear back from my editor on my stories.  But how do you know which suggestions to use and which aren’t for you?  Personally I don’t like a comma before ‘and’ in a sentence.  It feels unnecessary to me.  But if I don’t use one will it damn me in the writing community?  Should I care if other writers think I’m not as professional as them because I don’t use the Oxford Comma?  The reader’s what matters right?

How do I know when my book babies are ready to leave the nest?  Do I take to heart the one or two not so positive opinions and throw out all the good ones on my stories?  I bet this is where a publisher comes in.  If I had one they would tell me if my story was ready.  If you’re an Indie Author how do you know when your story is ready?

Maybe I should title this stuck in the mud.

Poetry?

To post or not to post

Since I’m in full editing mode when I’m working I feel like my writing muscles may shrivel up from not being used.  I have challenge myself to try to write a daily poem.  So, far I wrote one yesterday but I am fearful of sharing it here.  I don’t mind sharing bits of my works in progress but something about sharing poetry seems more intimate.  Feel free to laugh at me.  I may come to a place where I will feel comfortable to share it, I guess we’ll see.

What do you do to keep your writing muscle flexed?

Things I wish I would have known – 2

Things I wish I had known before starting to write my first book 2.

So in my last things I wish I had known post I talked about sentence length, passive voice, tenses, outlines, etc.  This time round I want to talk about the dreaded Showing not Telling.

Things to avoid

• Adverbs – this one baffles me.
• To Be – learning to write with out using to be or one of its forms is like learning to do Calculus for me.
• ly – words that end in this are taboo.
• ing- words that end in this shouldn’t begin sentences.
• As – should not start a sentence.
• Over doing it – once you get the above down apparently you need to go back and undo some of it.  I believe this follows the getting ready to go out rule of ‘after you’re ready to go out look in the mirror and remove at least one item’ or to much of a good thing is bad.

The problem with these rules is I can’t tell you why you need to do them.  Grammar might as well be a foreign language for me.  I do have access to the internet and can look up articles on how to show and not tell.  I compiled a list of ones I thought I could do.

Things I wish I would have known.

Things I wish I had known before starting to write my first book.

I want to share with you some things I have discovered since I began this adventure of writing a book.  These are things that apply to me but some may be helpful to you or not.  These are things I have figured out along the journey.  All are my opinions solely.

• Write!  WRITE!  Sit the f down and write.  Write until the story is done. 😍

• Take a break when it’s done.  Maybe a long weekend.  Maybe a week.  Whatever.  Drink heavily to celebrate during break. 🎉😎🍹

• Edit-not all in the same read through. 💻🔫😡