Happy Labor Day!
Now that summer is over, the kids are going back to school, weather is turning cooler, and we are finally getting some rain…
I have been writing on this blog with an attitude of see what works. I planned on my Mon Weds Fri themes as a way of providing structure so I didn’t get overwhelmed yet being open and flexible enough to allow me freedom. Monday is the announcements or writing related stuff day. I have made a couple of blog posts about writing craft, but I now realize that just isn’t where this blog is headed.
There are plenty of great blogs out there and awesome resources online for writing craft info. I might do a blog post listing my favorites. But so much good quality stuff is out there, it doesn’t make any sense for me to try to compete. When I thought about the writing related topics I have listed that I want to blog about, I realized most of them fall under criticism as opposed to craft.
An irony for writers– I do agree with not getting too caught up in reviews of your own work. I did go to the Amazon page of Vampire Connoisseur to feed my ego (Yay! people like my story!) but I think too much time reading criticism of your own work isn’t helpful. Not all criticism is equal. Editing feedback from a known and proved source is different from random review online (yes, I totally see the irony of my statement…). But writers do need to have an ear to the ground for general criticism. What is the real meaning behind tropes we have seen so many times we fail to notice them? What is becoming popular? What depictions have an audience seen, and what are ways to twist expectations on their head? I read articles online critiquing general things like overused rape tropes, and using that to critique my own work. When is sexual violence depicted in my work as a realistic reflection of the world it is in, vs. a way of causing trauma/complication/character development that could be done in another way? Those questions are ones I might not be prompted to think about without reading critical essays.
Being able to step back and analyze is one of the things that can separate the good from awesome. When I spend time analyzing tropes and drawing conclusion, I like writing my own post about it. That feels a more genuine direction to go.
This doesn’t mean I’ll never write about craft. I might talk about how my WIP is going, what methods I use for research and writing. At some point, I would love to do Q and A explaining why I made certain decisions and where I found certain information.
So it is a bit of relief to let that go. I have been focused on my Journey to Paganism series, so haven’t been writing my criticism I would like to. I will make a decision regarding Journey to Paganism next month. Most likely I will change it to once a month, which will give me more room to write about other topics. But for now I already have two topics in that series planned for this month.
May September be the start of a pleasant fall!