*Blows Into Mic* Hello?

It’s been very quiet here at A History of Romance lately. For the past couple weeks, I think I’ve been the only one posting. Before that, for a couple weeks only one other person posted.

I’m feeling kinda lonely.

Sometimes group blogs like this one fade over time. People end up with other commitments and just don’t have the time to do a weekly post, or they run out of things to blog about, or they decide to devote their energy to their own blog rather than a shared one. I know April Dawn, who started this blog, is dealing with health problems related to a pregnancy, or at least that’s what the stickied post at the top of the page says. Hopefully all is well with her!

So meanwhile, that means not much has been going on around here lately. I’m not sure that many people are showing up here on Wednesdays to see me ramble, and so I’m going to keep this post short.

I’ve been dealing with personal stuff myself lately, stuff that’s left me barely able to write a sentence a day when my normal output is 5-10 pages a day. Stress will do that to a person. So my writing’s taken a nosedive, and the situation’s going to continue for a while.

Since my energy’s at a low while I’m dealing with this stuff, I have to make some choices. I’ll still be blogging here as long as the blog exists, but I’ll probably miss a week here and there. Hopefully some of the other bloggers will be able to post again as well.

Learn the craft… and then use it!

Writing is a craft, no question. You have to have a grasp on grammar, spelling, punctuation, all that stuff, in addition to being able to tell a good story–or maybe I should say *show* a good story. Your ability to create a realistic plot and characters has to be strong, and your writing all has to come together to somehow make sense.

When people ask my advice for aspiring writers, my answer is usually along the lines of “Learn your craft, and don’t expect to ever fully master writing, because that won’t happen. There’s always something to learn.”

I think that’s true. You have to learn so many things to be a good writer, and there’s always room for improvement. Unfortunately, there’s also room for backsliding.

Back in April, I set myself a goal of submitting 16 writing projects, including a few freebies, between April 30 and October 31. That was probably too much, and real life knocked me upside the head a few times as I was working on those projects, so I wasn’t able to focus as well as I would have liked. I became sloppy and rushed. Even though I’d learned a lot about the craft of writing since my first e-book was published in early 2009, I started forgetting some of what I’d learned, or making new mistakes to replace the ones I’d trained myself out of.

Because of that habit, instead of receiving acceptances, I’m getting requests to revise stories and submit them so the publisher can take another look. Which is better than outright rejections, but still, some of the things they’re mentioning in those requests are things I know better than to do in my writing. Stuff like too much telling, or not enough details in the setting and characters’ appearances. Having the characters do things that are out of character for them.

I’m still dealing with real life stress, and that’s making it hard for me to focus. I’ve backed off on new projects for a while,except for a couple of short stories I’ve promised, and am focusing on the revise/resubmit requests I’ve gotten in the past couple months. Hopefully as I work through those, I’ll rebuild my skills as a writer and recover my ability to focus. (The steps I’m taking to get rid of the real life stress will help with that too, I hope.) So I have learned my craft, it’s just that I seem to have forgotten it temporarily.

I will learn again, though. And after a few months, I’ll start a new project that will be even better for the time I’ve taken to relearn what I need to know.

Blogger’s Block

Authors often talk about writer’s block, that inability to think of anything to write about, or at least anything to go on with the story they’re working on. Some people insist that writer’s block doesn’t exist, that if you just stay focused and disciplined you’ll never have times when you don’t know what to write. I have to say I disagree with that, because there have been times when I’ve sat at the computer with my timer going and my manuscript open in front of me, and absolutely nothing has come to my mind to type.

Sometimes writer’s block isn’t really a function of not knowing what to write, but of being distracted by other things despite one’s best attempts to focus. External things can interfere with writing, no question. When I feel stressed about personal issues, it’s hard for me to even sit down at the computer, never mind write. I don’t want to write, I want to make the stress go away. Of course, writing sometimes helps with that, but if my mind is racing too fast I can’t slow it down enough to write.

Anyway.

The title of this post wasn’t “Writer’s Block.” It’s “Blogger’s Block”, which is related to writer’s block but isn’t quite the same thing.  Blogger’s block is when someone is expected to submit a blog post on a given date and can’t think of anything whatsoever to blog about.

I’ve been in that position before, on this blog as a matter of fact. So when in doubt, I blog about not knowing what to blog about.

Which is what I’m doing here, and which is why this is a short post. Have a great week, happy reading, and hopefully next week I’ll have something more profound to say.