Worderella Writes

Quote: Failure to Please

A writer attempts to show how even a well-known classic author wouldn’t cut it in today’s cutthroat publishing business.

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Hurting Our Characters

Well, it’s Finals Week™, so we all know what that means: I get to start writing again! At the end of every quarter as assignments trickle to a halt and I’m left with more free time, all those little nuggets of inspiration that came to me earlier (but I couldn’t encourage because I had to be in school-mode) are now free to take over. What does this mean, Worderella? What are you trying to tell us?

It means that I’ve written another couple of thousand words over the last few days, which is a cause for celebration. Assuming I keep my overall goal of approximately 85 000 words (the range for a full-length novel is anywhere from 80 000 to 100 000+), then I can safely say I am 39.5% complete with this draft.

But I’ve hit a slight roadblock.

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Tragedy, Haitus

First, my thoughts and prayers go out to the students, staff, and faculty at Virginia Tech, and their friends and families.

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Top Seven Traits

So your current work-in-progress looks like it might never see the light of day. Yet, when your friends and colleagues ask what you do, you itch to say that you’re a writer. How can you say that? What makes you think you’re a writer? What gall you must have! Here is a list of seven traits that I can relate to, and hey, I call myself a writer. Read the list and maybe you’ll have more confidence in yourself and your projects as well.

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Good-bye to POD-dy Mouth

I just wanted to mention the going of POD-dy Mouth. She had a wonderful experiment of finding self-published print-on-demad authors, reviewing them, and even coming up with a top list of books with the reward being that the winner of her Needle Competition would have a reading with a literary agency. She’s done a lot of good work these last two years trying to change the way the publishing industry looks at POD and self-publishing.

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Procrastination

I should be studying for my finite automata exam. Really, I should. However, I find myself procrastinating. Which is funny, because usually I use my studying and classwork as a way to procrastinate from my writing. Now, I’m procrastinating from the very thing that allows me to procrastinate.

Why am I procrastinating from my writing? Well, because when I look at the page, I sigh and my shoulders slump, rather than smile and put my eager fingers to the keyboard. Like I said before, I know where I want to go next. What I don’t know, what the characters refuse to tell me, is what path to take in order to get there. And no, I am not schizophrenic, though sometimes my mother worries I might be when I start talking about my characters as if they were alive.

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Keep Your Writing Sharp…By Reading A Lot

The following wonderful writing advice was found at Carrie’s Procrastinatory Outlet. Her original post is about why we, as writers, should analyze why we, as readers, decide to put a book down. This analysis should improve our writing and help us with our editing, is her main point. I decided to share her writing tips with you, but click the link above if you want to read the original blog post or start reading Carrie on a normal basis.

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Linking Squee

So, after updating the website with little things here and there, updating links, adding a nifty (and random) blockquote to the main page, among other things, I decided to do the exact thing most writers shouldn’t do: I googled myself. Well guess what? It turns out that one of the blogs that I read somehow found me! Word Nerd edited one of her journals to include other bloggers in a chain-blog with the subject “What five things would I like to do one day?” Because she went back to add people to the list, I never saw that I was added. But how exciting! Though, now I feel a little self-conscious.

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Suggested Reading

As a writer, I have an interesting position with my friends who consider me a writer: they ask for reading suggestions, as though I’ve read everything and therefore know what’s worth reading. Now, admittedly, I do read a lot. Usually more during my breaks than when school is in session. I’ve been known to knock out ten books in a couple weeks, if I have the time. But the fact of the matter is, sometimes I’m absolutely thrown for a loop when someone asks me what they should read next.

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And now for a brief message…

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