On Writing Fluff

Wow, it’s been a while. I know, I’ve really dropped the ball on the regular updates to this blog so far – in fact, on having updates at all – and my own tendency to constantly switch my focus between different projects has thrown a spanner into the works, as I knew it would before too long. But I also have another theory as to why I’ve been reluctant to update this blog: I’ve been setting the bar for myself too high. Lately, at least, I’ve been trying to make each post absolutely meaningful and worthwhile on all levels – either saying something insightful about writing; containing a lot of info about, or a new instalment of, the story; or doing a kind of review-slash-informational-piece about someone else’s work for Recommendation Tuesday. And I figured it was better to update the blog less frequently with more meaningful posts than to scrape the bottom of the barrel for interesting content.

To Serialise Or Not To Serialise?

Or, ‘On Making Rough Drafts Public’.

Originally I was going to have this Friday’s post be about The Evolution of Setting, but I couldn’t remember half the points I wanted to cover, and I decided that I should probably save most of these backward-looking posts for when I’ve actually, y’know, finished a first draft or something similarly outlandish. So instead I’m going to talk about an important consideration for any writer who wants to build up a following online: namely, how polished does my writing have to be before I post it on the Internet?

I Have a Cunning Plan

HELLO AGAIN. I am so sorry for the radio silence for the past month-and-a-half (gah, it’s been that long? @__@). I was in Japan and then I was in Beijing and then I went to Ha’erbin (a VERY cold Chinese city near the border with Russia) and then I was back in Beijing and then I came home to England. Finally. For four weeks :3 Hooray for uncensored internet! I’ve finally knocked my jetlag on the head and now I’m getting round to all the stuff I totally sidelined for the past couple of weeks while I was travelling about.

While I was on the plane home from Beijing my sleep-deprived brain managed to solve a plot hole for the middle of this story because for some reason I’m more creative when I haven’t slept. That was a positive step. All I need to do now is the actual writing part…

Also, I came up with a plan for a schedule for this blog. I’m going to aim to do two weekly posts, one on Tuesday and one on Friday. (I know today is neither of those. xD I meant to do this post last Friday, started writing it, and completely forgot to finish). Friday’s post will be a regular one – an excerpt, or status update, or ‘The Evolution of Characters’. Tuesday will be Recommendation Day. I will make a blog post recommending something which is linked to this project in some way, like an influential book or person or game. The link might be completely off-the-wall and obscure, but I promise to make the thing I plug an interesting thing.

So there you have it. This is my cunning plan. On Friday I will hopefully remember to make a post and the schedule will come into effect. For the sake of making it official, all times on this blog (for the next 3 weeks at least) are GMT/UTC, so there’s a slim chance that my post won’t go up on Tuesday/Friday in your timezone, but it will be in mine.

What have you (all two of you who read this blog) been up to since I last posted? Leave a comment!