Welcome to the Writer's Life

This is a good idea Beth. And thanks for the critique of my article; it was exactly what I was looking for.

I'm on board, Beth, though activity will be restricted the next week or so because of my "day job."

Damn those day jobs. When am I gonna win the lottery, anyway?!

I've given up on the lottery. I figure I'm going to have to wait until retirement. Since I'm older than dirt, it's not that far off. ALthough twice already today, my husband has caught medoing that 'thousand yard stare' thing, and just chuckled and said "Writing again?", before wandering off.

Great idea. I'm already in. I've been busy working on my Father's Day essay so it may be a day before I get to post anything.

Have you ever been just that close to finishing a piece but the words just won't untangle? I have 2 paragraphs that are giving me a hard time. I may be close to abandoning the essay! (A play on the saying that you never finish a poem, you just abondon it.)

I'm looking forward to reading what comes to this group. Thanks for starting it.

Great idea!
There is nothing like a good group of writers who want to take their art to the next level.
Write on!

George Vreeland Hill

I'm here. And because I'm leading a writer's life, with a day job that pays (literally) jack, and I'm going to a conference tomorrow at which I shall take the opportunity to speak with actual agents in as a beguiling a manner as I can possibly produce, I'm going to have to wait to hang out here until Monday...

;^}

Cathy

I have 3 poems on poetry.com and I'm writing a book it's hard to rehash my past but I'm going to do it to leave an imprint on the earth. I've wrote about everything under the sun. The book is about my life.

Oooh! Oooh! Cathy, we expect a full report!

great idea

Thanks, all, for joining us! This is where we get to share all the fun stuff.

Post away--let's see what life is like for writers--as if we didn't know :-)

Don't forget any images you want to share.

Okay, here's my account of my last couple days of "writing."

Um...it's a little embarrassing.

Well, I finished a rewrite of my book a couple of weeks ago - I was going to Puerto Vallarta for a couple of days and really wanted to get it done before submitting a query package to this agent (still waiting to hear on that). I'm sure I will go back and find more things that need tweaking but it's feeling done-ish for now. This was a hard book to write on a lot of levels. It took a considerable amount of research into a number of unpleasant subjects, so it was slow going a lot of the time. Some of that research was fun, even though the subjects weren't, but that's the perversity of writing, right?

I'm not one of these people who has a notebook full of ideas and is brimming over with enthusiasm to start new projects. I pretty much focus on one thing at a time and I obsess on it. Sometimes I can manage to juggle two projects, if they are dissimilar enough. But starting new stuff for me is usually pretty hard. I just. Don't. Feel like it. Generally what happens is that I get to a point where I'm somewhat recovered from the last project, and habit leads me to start something new regardless of whether I feel like it or not. It takes a certain period of metaphoric gun to my head to get going on a new project. Eventually I've put enough time and energy into it where it takes on its own momentum and I get enthusiastic about it.

So I'm sort of starting something new. Slowly. I've got, oh, a page and a half. It's very "normal" so far, which for me, is weird. But just once I'd like to write something that clearly slots into a specific genre and isn't so much one of these idiosyncratic things that leads to a lot of head-scratching. So I'm writing a mystery. I figure I've read enough of them.

So far there's been a lot more procrastinating ("Oooh! Bright, shiny object!") than there has been writing. I've still got a couple things I promised to read and make notes on to do. But I swear I will at least write something today.

Some time after the Sopranos and John from Cinncinnati, of course.

That's honest, Lisa. Some writers overflow with ideas, others find them as they need them, still others sit and deliberately think of a subject for writing. I think you would find you're not too far from what at least some others do.

Writing a mystery sounds like an adventure for someone who's never written one. I hope your mind fills with plot twists and red herrings and multiple prospective bad guys. Lots of worthey murder suspects, too, if it's a murder-mystery.

I've tried to stretch a bit too, at least here on Gather. I've posted a couple of... poems. At least that's how I look at them. I also did a poetic photo essay. I'm not a poet so the writing style was different for me.

Much success with the mystery. I'm sure we'll read more about it in the coming months.

Good idea. Thanks.

I have joined.

Welcome, Mary! Welcome to all.

I guess there's probably a line somewhere that begins with " old writers never die--they just....." But I'm beginning to think that old writers HAVE to die---because some never get famous until they do. Looks like I might be one of them. But I'm not going to do anything to speed up the process . Lonnie Ray Fowler. Pardon me, I've got to go join this group---if I may.