I am sorry about the topic delay. I’ve had the topic for 3 or 4 days but it has been too hot to sit at the keyboard. Montana Hot. For us, 70
degrees is pushing it, 92 is sheer torture.
The topic is Guest Blogging.
I have a lot of experience with guest blogging. My personal website is full of Writerly Wednesday Guest Posts. I spotlighted authors of all kinds. It takes some preparation to Host each Spotlight but it is a low cost way of reaching new readers through the guest and the guest gains new readers from my blog as well.
Thank you, Sandra Beckwith for sending out a Newsletter at just the right time. I was looking for a topic and Guest Blogging is
going to be our August Theme.
How to give good feedback and still benefit from bad.
Personally, I do not like to read another writer’s work to critique it. I will volunteer to be a first reader. I will not volunteer to edit, but I will make notes
as I read if I see something that works so well I had to stop for a minute. I’ll note an obviously jangled sentence. I think I am reluctant to Critique because I don’t understand how to do it without putting a writer on the defense.
I have noticed on Amazon many reviews of books are Critiques and it is far TOO LATE to critique once a book is out there.
Bring your own beverage and a desert for the table at the back of the room. Chat begins at 7PM
EDT
Writing Rituals
Do you have a writing ritual?
It doesn’t have to be ornate or blustery.
Do you make sure you have your favorite ink pen? Do you turn on music?
Maybe you have to be sitting at your keyboard at just the right angle.
Maybe you clean your area, first.
Have a seasonal drink, iced tea, coffee, apricot brandy at your side?
Do the household animals have to be outside? On your lap?
Phone turned off? Headphones and mic to dictate? Favorite browser for research?
Favorite word processor? A “wrist snappin' red rubber band.”
I like a cold drink, my favorite pen, (missing well over a month) Office 360 Word, (used to be yWriter but the new updates have made Word a true adventure) no
music, (it is distracting) and I have to be sitting at my laptop at just the right angle.
Some of history’s most celebrated authors swore by unusual and bizarre rituals. It’s possible we owe many great pieces of literature to the fact that they were so
meticulous in maintaining these strange habits.
Truman Capote
The creative genius behind In Cold Blood, Capote was a superstitious man. His writing rituals often involved avoiding particular things.
Namely, hotel rooms with phone numbers including “13,” starting or ending a piece of work on a Friday, and tossing more than three cigarette butts in one ashtray.
Ernest Hemingway
In stark contrast to James Joyce, Hemingway was a firm believer in standing while writing.While working on The Old Man and The Sea,he followed a strict regimen:
“done by noon, drunk by three.” This entailed waking up at dawn, writing furiously while standing at the typewriter, and eventually making his way to the local bar to get inebriated.
Join us on Sunday, July 19 at The Writer's Chatroom at 7PM EDT and tell us about your Writing
Rituals.
