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The Writing Cooperative have a great post "Making of a Wannabe Writer". I recommend anyone undertaking a large writing project read their article and answer the questions they present.
Today, I am sharing my responses to these questions. It should provide readers better insight into what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and whether I'm meeting those goals.
A formatting note: The main questions from the articles are in bold and a chaser question is in normal font. I will provide my responses in italic purple for clarity.
Writing is a compulsion for me. I feel like I have hundreds of stories bubbling up in me I want to share. Crafting them and making something larger than myself is fulfilling
As far as blogging goes, I have observations during my writing process. Most often I prefer to share them with my husband or with my writing group, but sometimes they are so repetitive, I feel the need to get them down in print. That's how the blog arises.
I don't have the success where I feel I could offer advice. Still, there are areas of my personal journey that thrive. I like to record what I'm doing and what results I've seen as a guide for others and a reference for myself.
Who is your target? Talk to yourself about the genre and the suitable target audience. What will be their volume?
My creative writing has several genres. Fantasy, Urban Fantasy that sometimes borders on Magical Realism, Scifi, supernatural, paranormal, and genre fiction (very little genre). My writing is character driven, emotion based, and revolves around explore themes instead of plots. It leans towards a more academic crowd and most people believe it's more female centered (though I still don't know why, but I'll embrace the label).
My creative writing has a smaller but fervent niche and I'm looking for my people.
My blogging is more large scale. Where I am in process leans me towards an audience of fellow writers and social media engineers. Authors because their experience and mine resonates. Social media engineers may be interested because I'm publishing plans to cultivate a following/sell a produce and I'm also publishing real time results. This is the kind of things marketing media companies should live for even if I'm only working on a smaller scale.
I believe as my process evolves it will expand out to publishers, agents, and editors. As editing is a weakness of mine, I'm most dubious that I'll have something to offer them, but I haven't snuffed all hope of expanding in that direction.
- Why should people read this? Can they relate it to their life? Will it be helpful for them? Will it entertain them?
- People should read my creative writing because it's a fun ride. The stories are well constructed and flow with purpose. The characters realism grounds a story off set by fantastic surroundings.
- People may also enjoy my stories because many of them explore issues I see in the real world and transform them into fictional stories where we can hold a less charged conversation about observation or issue of the day.
- It is my goal for this blog to provide insight into how a writer may balance the many tasks required to be a known writer. This includes making time for creative writing, maintaining a blog, creating and curating a social media presence, submitting to publishers, finding an audience, and supporting other creatives. I hope to do this by sharing my plans along with progress or setbacks I find along the way.
This is a loaded question for me. As someone who sees connections rather than divisions, I'm torn on what "genre" my work falls into. For simplicity I tell others it's "Urban Fantasy", but I hold personal doubts. While the settings of my work are modern and magic exists in these worlds, I lack other elements like humor or a romance that most Urban Fantasies experiment with. I've read "gritty" or "hard boiled" Urban Fantasy but the main leads are men and my leads are women.
My stories are character driven, the "stuff" happening to them is secondary to how the characters react, where most Urban Fantasies portray all the cool magic stuff with character reactions taking a back seat.
If someone told me I was writing women's fiction, I wouldn't disagree, except I've read women's fiction and while we are bonded spiritually by themes, the fantasy elements depart from most women's fiction.
My blogging style is far easier to describe. It's for personal revelation and insight, A public baring of the soul so we might all learn together. Upbeat, supportive, and highly female in its presentation.
My journey is too early to provide "expert" advice but I see myself growing into being a writing coach. Someone who helps others organize and prioritize their time and efforts. I also see myself as a publishing scout. I'm always checking out writing markets and I have a good sense of when others are ready to publish and where to submit. Just ask my writing group.
A little of both. I've been writing stories since I was six, and I've never gone long without writing. I don't think I could stop writing at this point and I very much want to share my creative work.
Blogging likewise, is something I've played with since it was a thing. I have an old Livejournal and Insanejournal account that are embarrassing I'd delete them if I could, but I've lost the email and passwords in long ago.
Here on blogger, I've played with several formats. Anytime I wanted to try something journalling became a natural extension of that exploration.
I have a plan, and I intend to commit, but I've said before. The only way to be honest is to come back in thirty days and see if I had a habit moment.
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