How NOT to write a blog post...

How not to write a blog post:

1) Have final university assignments to complete

2) Have paid work with a deadline

3) Run the last story writing competition for Fabo 2014 (with heartfelt thanks to Tania Hutley) at www.fabostory.wordpress.com (entries are closed, and I am now judging the winners)

4) Get a cold

5) Start reading books from the enormous tbr pile beside your bed as soon as 1) is posted away to your course controller (so far I've read Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater and Every Breath by Ellie Marney)

6) Watch movies (I recommend Mud) and all 7 series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer to avoid/get you through doing 1) and 2)

7) Be down about the state of publishing, which seems to be turning in ever decreasing circles these days. Lists have got shorter, publishers fewer, and competition fiercer. Publishers are looking for safe bets, blockbusters-in-waiting, the next big thing. I've recently had a couple of accepted projects subsequently declined. And I'm not the only one to whom this has happened.

8) Spend time looking for the silver lining to 7)

9) Stare at the looming prospect of Christmas that sucks the air out of everything else from now until January 1st

10) Read other peoples blog posts about what you should put in a blog post

11) Think a lot about writing (rather than doing any)

12) Listen to/watch your writing heroes say amazing things about the art of writing

See what I did there? :)

Procrastination is the evil twin of motivation...

So Nicola Morgan threw a fab 1st birthday party for her blog and she really knows how to throw a party. I always meet the most amazing people at her place . Go check out the blogs of these folk, SF, Lorelei Armstrong, Debs and Karen Jones Gowan. Writers have always sought out the company of other writers (William Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Leigh Hunt, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfield, Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson to name but a few) and I just love that I can communicate with writers all over the world as well as the ones in my own country and home town. Even while I'm meeting new writers in other countries (check out this quote on Lorelei's blog) I'm also talking to one in Dunedin (check out this post by Libba Bray brought to my attention by TK Roxborogh). Of course this is what I'm actually doing when I should be fixing my current manuscript. There is no official deadline but a publisher has said they will read it when its done so there is sufficient motivation (of which procrastination is the evil twin - mwahahaha). I've checked facebook a couple of times and got up to-date with a few of my favourite blogs. I played several rounds of 3 card draw computer solitaire at which I am embarrassingly fast (pb 39 seconds) and did the disturbing task of accompanying my eldest as she gave out CV's in the search for a part time job at the local shopping mall (disturbing only because its another unquestionable sign she is growing up and away despite her protestations she is never leaving home). I had another look at my grade for the university paper I did last year and yay - it is beautiful and IT HASN'T CHANGED - and I enrolled for another paper this year (although over $1200 for one paper just about made me have apoplexy: I am applying for a distance learning rebate post haste). And finally because damn-it, no publishers are beating down my door yet this year, either via e-mail or post, and I have to rest my leg cos I pulled a muscle JOGGING ON THE SPOT (sad and pathetic huh?) I have finally started the edit. This will be the final fix up before I have it read by a trusted pawn from my cabal of supporters of my plan for world domination. Then it will be off to the publisher. Stories are NEVER finished but as Libba Bray says, (to paraphrase) they just become someone we used to be close to, but now we've moved on.