This
week was Easter and all the wonderful things it brings. Not. Well, that isn’t
true. We heard some lovely bells on Easter as every church in Vienna rung the
religious joy throughout the land. And I mean no disrespect as that religion is
basically the same as my own. I just don’t go to church any more for a variety
of reasons. Here, there’s also the added angst of a language barrier. Then
there is the fact that lots of them still use the traditional language of
Latin.
The
week was filled with writing, learning and dealing with family. It was also
filled with weird weather, thunderstorms with snow, good food and lots of
walking. I’m sure that many of you think that I’m walking to get rid of that
good food and you’re partially correct. I walk a lot of times because we don’t
have a car here in Europe.
Yup,
you heard that one right. I have no car…makes the limos seem plausible right…kinda.
LOL! If we get a taxi here, chances are it will be a Mercedes and that’s a
major step up from the Jeep I have at home. Still, I would love to have my Jeep
to drive around here. Parking is a bear but with the right permit, one can park
anywhere close to their house or in one of the many, and I mean many, parking
garages located throughout the area. There is literally one on every street
near me, I swear. But that goes back to all living in flats with no place to
park. I could go on and on about this one.
Promise,
I won’t. I need to talk about writing. After all, it is what I do. Or what I’m
supposed to do. And I did to a lot last week but not enough in my book.
Technically, I should be producing around 25,000 words a week. That’s 5k per
day at least 5 days a week or some combination thereof that produces the desired
25K. Uh…nope…not last week. And the fact is that I don’t really have a darned
excuse. Regardless of what I do during the day, research or classes or walking
Pup Harry, I need to put in the writing time. Otherwise, no limos or tiaras.
Not that I want them anyway.
The
job of writing has only one requirement and that is to firmly plant my butt in
the chair. Not just any chair but my chair in front of my computer working on
my stories. Sure, I do a lot of other things besides working on my stories.
Things like this column, writing promo, emails and the like. However, the
majority of my time needs to be working on one of my latest works-in-progress.
Some
would say that’s rather unfocused of me and I’d have to agree. Writers must be
self-motivated to accomplish all they do. Last week, I’ll be honest, I have
been mainly working on getting a story from my backlist out. This story was
published quite a few years ago and though it needed little work, it is a
series with 3 other people, all of who are learning the self-publishing ropes
to some degree. Having done a lot of that previously, I understand the system
pretty well. Therefore, I’ve vetted lots of questions and helped on all other
fronts.
The
only thing bad, in my opinion, about self-publishing from the author’s
perspective is that it is a time suck until you get the steps down to an art.
Like anything, that can take a while but once accomplished, it should start becoming
second nature. I am of the opinion that being a hybrid author, one that has
traditional contracts as well as doing the self-publishing thing, is the only
way to go in today’s publishing climate.
Some
of you might see my column this week as a bunch of disjointed things. The fact
is that everything is connected, from my week to my writing and all points in
between. Life is connected and those who can’t see it are missing out on some
of the most joyous things in the world. Writing is telling those things, be
they fiction or non-fiction, and relating to people and places around you.
I
hope I’ve related just a bit of what it means to be a full time writer. Until
next week…
Lynn
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