My Blog

It’s the first day of August and this marks the end of the first three weeks of my 1,000 words daily exercise. I have really enjoyed this and I plan to continue to write 1,000 words a day. I don’t always blog what I write, sometimes I do if I think it would be interesting to anybody. It isn’t great writing, it’s just writing. I haven’t been writing long enough to have great writing. I don’t spend long enough with each piece to have it qualify as great. Usually I sit down to write, open my program and just start writing. I let myself discover what is on the inside. I think this is important because it gives me an idea as to what is on the inside. It also gives me the chance to let my brain flow. Sometimes I start with one thought and end up with a completely different one with several other thoughts in the middle. Usually when I have struggled through the start of a piece I look at the word count and it says 155 or something. I immediately think that that’s nothing yet and I’m running out of words. What will I write about for 850 more words. I keep going and after awhile I check the word count again and it’s around 750 words. Now I’m thinking that I better get to the point and tie things up because I’m running out of words. But the words keep coming and I keep typing. When I’m finished tying things up I check the word count and it’s way over 1,000 words, so I read through and start cutting. I find other mistakes in spelling or grammar and quickly fix them. I take out repetition and unnecessary rambling until I’m really close but still over. That’s all I do. Then I post it to my blog and share it on my face book page. Now if I want to write something really good or even great, I would put a lot more time into it and choose words carefully and go over the outline in more detail. I would take longer with it, but since it is meant to be a sample of free flowing words I just let it be. Recently I found this paper with ideas for weekly writing to share on my blog. It is by: DIY Author. I printed it out and I really liked a few of the ideas. One is to serialize a whole story. That is a cool idea. Another one is to write micro fiction. Just little stand alone stories, 1,000 words. Most of their ideas were great. I like having a map for stuff. Sometimes it just helps. At first when I started my blog I was all about setting it up. I did it carefully, needing it to reflect me. Then it was ready and it was so clean and nice but completely empty. I wasn’t sure what to put in it because I didn’t want to mess it up. I want to encourage anyone who wants to write to just go for it. Start posting stuff. Start getting your words out there. Start a blog and write for it. Don’t worry about audience yet. Start publishing your words to your blog. It is great practice. It is best not to start off with a huge audience because that is a lot of pressure. Once you get the feeling that someone is reading what you wrote then you have to deal with that feeling. You will have that. You will be so grateful that someone actually took time to read all those words. The thing is you have just got to start. In three weeks I have changed from being a private writer to being a self-published author. You know you are considered published when you post to your blog. Strange how easy that was. It has nothing to do with money. It has only to do with your writing being where anyone can pick it up and read it. Some of the other things on this list are; sharing excerpts of work you are currently doing; telling the story behind the story, or revealing where you came up with the idea; Q&A with characters in your book or series; interview authors who write similar to you; share and review new books in the same category as yours; make lists of books similar to yours; invite your readers to ask questions and have Q&A time. The are more, it’s a pretty awesome list. I like the first one, ‘serialize a whole story - 1,000 words at a time’. I will still write 1,000 words a day but not always post them. Sometimes I will be rewriting and planning the next step in a story. I’m also working on a children’s book, illustrations and all. Sometimes you just have to do it. You wonder for years if you could, if you should, then one day you just have to go ahead and do it. Perhaps I’ll write a serialized story once a week, a micro fiction once a week or other kind of story and do a book review once a month. A book review will require a library trip on my part, which is something I would like to get back to doing. I would like to feature other writers from time to time but that will take time to figure out. These are some of the plans I have for my blog. Unlike most other venues in business, there is not much competition among writers. No two writers are exactly the same and there is always room for more. It’s the more the merrier in this field. What is important is the quality. One writer inspires another and in inspiring is inspiration. I have received emails from well-known authors encouraging me to write and keep writing until I break-out and then, keep writing.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,000 words exactly.