Not Writing

It’s weird. I’ve haven’t really written anything since the start of the year. Well, that’s not technically true – I haven’t written any fiction since that start of the year. I have been writing a lot, mostly masters work, as I mentioned in the first post of the year. Two pieces of work were handed in in January, I’ve got an essay on Open Access due in this month, the dissertation is ongoing and I’m just starting to sink my teeth into the literature review, and the other piece of coursework is ongoing, ending with a 3,000 words reflective report that is going to reference and build on weekly exercises we’re doing alongside the lectures. So, actually, there is a lot of writing, but none of it has been fiction.

It’s kind of weird so far. And, yes, there is something of a feeling that I am less of a writer than I was last year because I am not writing at the moment. But, on the other hand, it’s a conscious decision because I have something which I consider more important at the moment, and it’s not like I’m giving up writing forever – I’m just not engaging with it at the moment in favour of something else. But brains and feelings are funny places, and just because I know that I will pick it back up towards the end of the year when all this masters work is done and out the way, doesn’t stop me from feeling a little bit remorseful about it.

It’s not like I can’t write either, but a lot of my spare time and almost all of my energy is going on the masters, and energy is something that I have in short supply (stupid anaemia -_-) so even if I do find a spare half hour here or there, my brain usually isn’t in the mood to do anything other than spacing out. And yes, you should force yourself to write even when you don’t want to, but I also need to not burn out, so I am making sure that when I’m not working on the masters, the time is spent wisely, either just relaxing or napping or doing something that doesn’t require brain power because I’ve spent it all. Me rambling on like this is mostly just me trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t feel guilty for not writing. Also partly because a lot of my short fiction ends up on here, and if I don’t write then there is a slight lack of things to post here. Although I do have an idea to photograph all the dragons in my study and show them to you, which is something that won’t take a lot of time, but since there are a lot of them, would probably need to be spread out over several posts. I should really work on that. And I vaguely have the idea of finding another theme challenge to do flash fiction with, as those don’t tend to take a lot of time, and they are good for just keeping up with it on the side.

Also I do have to admit, right now everything is competing against the new Nintendo Switch and Zelda: Breath of the Wild game for my attention. It came out on Friday in the UK, and I am in love with the console and the game. I don’t even care how many times I’ve died, it is a beautiful game and I am so in love with it and all I want to do is play it and play it some more. I really didn’t get much coursework done over the weekend, I’ll confess.

On blogs and blogging

So, as I said over the summer, I got onto the masters degree that I applied to. We’re now in Week 4 for teaching, and I am exceedingly busy with all the learning, and my normal working hours, and trying to maintain a social life (and when November finally rolls around, NaNoWriMo. Because I never make sensible decisions with my time).

The thing about life in general, is that it is, occasionally funny.

Right now? It’s funny because I’ve got my first assignment in my Information Literacy module. What is it? It’s an annotated bibliography. What’s the title? Well I took the broad subject “Use of Web 2.0 in marketing” and narrowed it down to “How can blogs be used as a marketing tool for books (and other printed material)?”.

So yeah, I’m learning about blogs at the moment. With particular focus on authors. Oh look, I have a blog here, about writing, and I follow a bunch of blogs from authors and writers.

😀

Yeah, when you give me a choice of what I can do for my own title, I’m going to do something that I like. I like technology, hence writing about web 2.0 is fun, and then I had to think about what you can market on the web. And since I am part of a community of authors, the choice seemed obvious.

Of course, now I have the difficult bit of finding books and research papers relevant to research in this area, but that’s the academia bit for you.

I just think it’s funny, how you can turn what you love into many things, from a career, to an essay. And by doing lots of reading around the subject (so far I’ve picked up a whole bunch of books on marketing and blogging) I’m teaching myself a lot about blogging, including things I didn’t know. And by coming online, writing here, and then going out and reading all the lovely blogs that you have, I also remind myself of how awesome the blogging community is. Really, you guys are awesome, and books can never quite convey that. The sense of community, swapping tips and tricks, and just getting to know what happens in your lives.

I’m rambling a bit, I realise. I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m doing well with the masters, and this first assignment has made me re-realise how awesome blogging is, and how awesome you, my readers and fellow bloggers, are.