Yet another writer projects

[ksmith]

My advice? Stop projecting. If *you* feel blogging interferes with *your* production, ease off or stop. If it has no effect, or if you feel it helps you, keep it up. Because if you stop, I won't have anything to read.

I think posting about the wip, the 70 days thing, and process in general is helping me get going. I like seeing what my friends are up to. I live in a small town with no writers within shouting distance. LJ has been a godsend in that regard.

But I draw the line at reading blogs by writers who believe Hence Me, Therefore Thee.

Comments

[difrancis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Far from anywhere and needing that writerly connection. Especially given how soul-sucking the day job has been in recent years. I'm actually startled and surprised that I've been being as productive as i have during 70 days, and frankly, I need to be because my deadline is in June. So this has really been great. But, as you know yourself, a bit painful and so having the ability to commiserate has been really nice.

Di

[touchstone.livejournal.com]

For some people (not necessarily you - you know better than I, on that score!) blogging about the wip and giving daily (or at least, periodic) wordcounts seems to be a way of creating...witnesses? I find myself sometimes wondering how many of the writers whose blogs I read have ever told themselves 'I'd really like to stop here for the day and slack off, but then tomorrow I'd have to tell everyone I only wrote 300 words'. One of the hard things about being self-employed is not having anyone else to be accountable to - maybe people who want that find a way to create it?

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Heh.

The whole reason my mom is on my back to write a book is because I have an LJ and she gets to see my writing... and that there's a lot of it. (This is the same mother who buys books in hardback so her favorite authors get more royalties, so it's not that she thinks I'll get rich)

People aren't all the same. Thank God. I'd get awfully bored if they were.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

I'm with you.

I note that the condemnation (in ornate font on a hard-to-read background) is lengthy, fantastical, and clearly took hours to compose.

Pot. Kettle. Uh-huh.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

For some people (not necessarily you - you know better than I, on that score!) blogging about the wip and giving daily (or at least, periodic) wordcounts seems to be a way of creating...witnesses?

That's exactly the reason why I signed up for 70 Days, then blogged repeatedly about it. This early in the game, the true deadline panic has yet to set in, so I need something else to get me going.

Sad, but true.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

She apparently needs to apply the brakes to herself, but, well, projecting.

::pretty horsie::

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That's part of why I do it. Although these days it's more positive accountability (look! I worked on the book!) than a threat of failure.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

I think posting about the wip, the 70 days thing, and process in general is helping me get going. I like seeing what my friends are up to. I live in a small town with no writers within shouting distance. LJ has been a godsend in that regard.

I think she was a) projecting and b) has seen this happen to other writers, so also extrapolating. But I think she was trying to be helpful, so it didn't irritate me. The author -- I think it was Ian Douglas -- who thinks revision is a waste of time, otoh, did irritate me, so I'm probably picking and choosing.

I know Donald Maass has said in interviews and in public that he considers blogging has the effect that Hobb refers to in her very, very over-the-top rant. I think to some extent we all project.

That said?

Some people get energy from social interaction. Some people require energy to interact socially.

Isolation can make you insane, so blogging = good, and it does help to know that other writers are facing some of the same issues and hurdles that you face, because it's always easier to be objective about other people's work.

I also think that intensely, intensely private people have a much harder time blogging -- or forcing themselves to blog -- and that if you are one of these people, it probably does eat away at the same stores of fortitude you would otherwise put into chipping away at the Book That Does Not Want To Be Written.

Plus, you know, there's always the certainty that no one will find the blog interesting. Which I admit I suffer from, which keeps me from blogging more.

But Scalzi said that for his purposes, blogging is both things: energizing -and- a time sink, and it probably depends on the nature of the discussions and his own wip.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I do waste too much time online, but that's a different issue unrelated, in fact, to blogging. Like you, I have no writing community in the physical space where I live, and would feel desperately isolated without lj and other sff/writing blogs.

[battle-of-one.livejournal.com]

The problem isn't blogging, it's the writer's own discipline (or lack thereof). Who's to say blogging is bad? Sometimes we need our brains to back down from a book to recharge and talking with other writers or reading about your peers can be encouraging. I don't blog regularly but for those who may blog and have it negatively affect their writing... if it wasn't blogging it'd be something else. People don't need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I see where she's coming from but to each their own, and every writer knows in themselves if they're wasting time on a blog when they should be writing. And so they can take that responsibility and not blame an outside source.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Commiseration is nice.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

The positive side is nice, too. One reason why I'm keeping the counting post is to enjoy seeing the word counts on the good days, and to tell myself that I really am getting a jump on things this time, and as long as I keep plugging, all is good.