"Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told." Henry David Thoreau

Monday, April 20, 2009

Information Overload


Do you ever feel like you're getting too much information from every direction, and most of it is information you don't need and didn't seek out? Not only do you have the information you have to absorb in relation to your work, but there's the twenty-four-hour news on TV and the endless commentary designed to suck you in. And of course there's the mail. Every day you're bombarded with newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and a lot of stuff that goes in the garbage. If you're like me, you'll try to read the newspapers and magazines (after all, you paid for them) but there is never enough time in the day to do more than scan the headlines and maybe a paragraph or two of content. The magazines build up on the coffee table and you flip through them, looking at the pictures, stopping to read perhaps one or two articles in their entirety.

Then there's the internet. It always amazes me how people seem to be able to keep up with numerous blogs and websites, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and dozens of other blogs and websites that aren't even their own. They post to these other sites, too. There are even some people who post their daily activities as they do them, nearly minute by minute. And when you open your email, it is filled with more advertisements and newsletters that you could probably unsubscribe to, but you're afraid you might miss something.

Tell me, is anybody getting any work done? Has the world beyond my realm somehow figured out how to get more than twenty-four hours in a day? I would say, clue me in to this phenomenon, but I don't think I want more hours in a day. It would mean more newspapers and magazines I'd feel obligated to read, more websites I'd have to visit daily, more blogging, more emails, more comments to be made on Facebook. And, heaven forbid, if I had an extra hour in the day, I might even start twittering.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Finishing the Rough Draft


The first or "rough" draft is always the hardest when writing a novel, and it's always a relief to get it finished. I just finished the rough draft of my suspense novel (which has taken me a ridiculously long time to finish) and now the fun part begins, the polishing. Some people hate this part, but I always enjoy it because now I feel I have something to work with and improve upon, and I know my characters better than when I started.

It's always great fun to be getting on the home stretch and seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and to see your creation come to fruition. It's nice to be able to bask in the accomplishment for awhile before the next really hard part comes: marketing!