It’s a simple question. I’m looking for an angle on my blogging, and it’s often been suggested that I find problems and solve them. So I ask those of you who already read me:
What are the problems you’re struggling with, whether it be with writing, or web design, or photography, or any other subject?
I want my blogging work to be worthwhile, and I want it to help people. I really do like sharing what I know, what I’ve learned. I may not have answers to your problems, but I’ll try to find them, or point you to people who do.
I’ll pick one of the most insightful commenters on this post between here and LiveJournal and send them a copy of the new anthology, Federations, edited by John Joseph Adams, and containing stories by Lois McMaster Bujold, George R.R. Martin, Anee McCaffrey, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, and uh, me.
So, spill?
Not for me, obviously, but ‘here’s how to consider doing a site about a book/author’?
Okay. I need a place to live in Miami that isn’t in a high crime area for less than nine hundred a month. It’d be nice if it were within biking distance of this.
When I begin a story, I do a good job with characterization, with setting up engaging conflicts, with possibilities for compounded problems and solutions. From what they tell me, people generally want to keep turning pages.
Unfortunately, when I’m writing past the “beginning” I have difficulty choosing which plot options should take up those subsequent pages. The “middles” of my stories are a crossroads where I feel like no matter which path I let the protagonist take, I’m missing something better on one of the other paths. It doesn’t help when I sometimes finish a short story (or a chapter of a novel) and realize I have to delete 2,000 words and go a different direction because it’s totally awesome, and how didn’t I see it before I wasted all that time?
Do you have any ideas about how I can either 1. Stop being a pansy and just pick one and like it or 2. Discover which path is going to be the most satisfying BEFORE I write the wrong one?
Blue Tyson, I’ve done blog posts about that before, but it’s probably time to do another one.
Derksen, you’re on your own.
Inman, I have some thoughts about that. I’ll add this to my posts ideas.
I’m just beginning writing radio plays and I’m having to deal with the director wanting re-writes and wanting to ditch my favourite lines and basically harming my baby. I don’t want to overly precious. You’re on the other end of this, with ‘Escape Pod’. Any advice about the creative chasm between what the writer wants to submit and what the director wants submitted?
Another good question. Onto the list it goes as well.
So I know you work as an editor, and I know you’ve posted before some of your frustration when reading through the slush pile, I can only imagine how frustrating that could be. I wonder both being a writer and editor, how do you propose the right cover letter for submitting to magazines should look? What does it need? What shouldn’t it have? How should credits be listed, and for that matter, what do you consider real credits worth mentioning?
I’ve read a lot of agents talk about this sort of thing for novels, but I’d really like to know what you’d say about the matter in regards to short fiction.
I belong to a professional organization of teachers that has been slow to embrace internet technologies. I am interested in proposing improvements to their website but I am unsure how to communicate the ideas. What formating do you suggest for a written proposal to an organization?
Great question, Ed. It goes on the list as well.
I’ll take one from column A, and one from column C, please.
As a professional blogger, I constantly struggle with distractions, motivation, and inspiration. Even my “butt in seat” requirements (first 4 hours of the day, no matter what) are not always successful (witness me writing this comment, instead of say writing something I can get paid for).
No one has The Answer to that, but I always love hearing everyone else’s solutions/suggestions.
Also as a professional blogger, I struggle with having a cheap crap camera (Fujifilm FinePix A350, 5 years old). I post-process in Photoshop to overcome some of its weaknesses, always turn off the flash, and try to keep composition in mind. But I still burn with envy over the pictures taken by the $3,000 cameras of some of my blogging peers.
So here’s my question: how much of their great photography is them, and how much is their camera? If you had to use my lousy camera for a day, what would you do to compensate for its shortcomings?
And another good one. Erika, I can really address your second question, but the first one–I am the last person to address that one probably, haha! It’s on my list now–watch for a post on it in the coming days.
The quick answer to your questions are: it’s a little of both, mostly the photographer, and I got started in photography with a FinePix. A good camera doesn’t cost $3000 anymore, but I’ll give you some tips on pushing your FinePix to the limits.
I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for a long time. Given that I am a science grad student I also have some scientific background. I come up with ideas to write a sci-fi story or novel. Then I think on them and develop a general direction however, time limitations, English being my second language and generally poor writing skills (I don’t think people like stories that sound like academic papers) prevent me from doing anything with them. Are there any options out there to collaborate or a way to start writing? Thanks.
That’s a good starter question, and I have some definite thoughts on your question. Onto the list it goes!
The short answer is, I believe anyone can learn to write if they really want to, and language barriers are less and less of an issue. I’ll give some explanation of how you might get started and what I think about collaboration in a future post.
All of the above:
You are an excellent photographer, and while I don’t aspire to be so good (not enough time or spendy equipment). I’d love to learn about that — hear about your experiences shooting, see how a specific shot is set up. I do keep my camera with me all the time, but I don’t know how to do truly interesting things with it.
I always like to hear about other writers, but blogs that are all about all of our writer’s struggles tend to blur together after awhile. But periodic posts on writing would be great.
Web design is good — more from a “what works” perspective for me than a “how do I code X?”
Thanks, Brenda. Yeah, I don’t like writing about writing very much for that reason. If everyone who writes wrote about the actual process, we’d all be bored to tears. But I don’t mind answering specific questions now and again.
You’ll definitely see photography posts and “what works” web design posts in the near future.
I don’t have a website or blog. And I don’t know if I want one.
I understand if I’d create a blog for nattering on, but most of that itch gets scratched by Twitter. I’m not much of an essay writer, because I think I find others who say what I’m thinking better than I would.
That leaves self-promotion, possibly, of my fiction (plays, poems, short stories). If I don’t want to go the full Doctorow and Creative-Commons license everything, then how do I decide how much of my work to publish online?
I’m not going to be the type of writer who obsessively searches for online theft, but I need to find a way of talking about what I’m doing before I’m published regularly by magazines, online or otherwise — learning how to be part of a writing SF/F/H community, I guess, but without my questions getting lost on web boards.