A Week in the Writing Life, 18 March 2023

And we’re back. Let’s talk about what’s been going on.

[PHOTO NOTE: A quick picture of the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, Minnesota. Good times there.]

Home Front Stuff

Not too much to report on this part. I’m about two months away from summer break, and I have the feeling that the kids I’m teaching are starting to feel it as well. All will be fine in the end.

Reddit was on the fritz for a while on Tuesday, so that was a bit of a trauma. I spend way too much time on that site, which I might talk about sometime if I get bored.

In absence of personal news, here’s another throwback picture of my dog, Winnie, just because.

What I’ve Been Writing

Just when I thought I wasn’t going to meet my self-imposed deadline, I got all of my revisions and edits for The Yank Striker done and the changes off to my publisher. Now it’s sit around and wait as I get the next proof back and see what else needs to be done (My hope is not too much, but I can’t rush things either.)

I think my next big weekend story (that is, this weekend) will be about how my revising process has gone and how to strategically tackle it. On something like this, you need to have a good blueprint before starting out. For example, that’s one of the reasons I gave points to my junior high students for completing their prewriting so that they know what to do before they start writing their latest essays. Otherwise many of them just tend to write whatever comes into their heads in whatever order they are in the mood for, which can be good for spontaneous creativity but not so well in formal essays.

As for what I’m writing (other than the blog stuff, which is beginning to take up a bit more time and space than it has for a while), I think that I will need to get back onto The Yank Striker Part 2 (working title). I really was not quite comfortable writing on the new book until I resolved something in Part 1, so to speak. I’ll detail this in another post, but essentially, I realize that I’m a bit nervous about proceeding with a story if I don’t have a setting put together and laid out in my head, even if the reader doesn’t, in a sense, get a full tour of the place. This wound up happening when I took another look at a major setting in my book and it was not up to my expectations. Again, I’ll go over all those details during a separate post this weekend.

However, if I’m going to want to keep up the type of writing numbers that I managed, say, last week, I might have to put together those numbers writing here on the blog and some of my fanfiction that I tool around with just for fun. I want to make sure that what I am writing in Part 2 matches Part 1 perfectly.

It’s good that I’m starting to write a series, but it can be a bit stressful in making sure all the pieces fit together.

What I’ve Been Doing Having to do With Writing

Once again, I’m getting ready to get together with my writing group over the weekend. There is a bit of a Saturday Night Fever (Saturday Morning Fever, anyway?) in getting ready for those get-togethers on the weekends as the week goes on. I definitely think that I’ll be keeping an ear open at the meetings for any words of wisdom from my fellow published writers (who are all trundling along on this writing road with me), and I’d definitely be willing to share things that I picked up as well.

In fact, I’m thinking that I might add an “advice corner” to these weekly posts where I give a quick tidbit of advice rather than longer ones, although I will definitely keep doing the longer advice pieces every so often. Any thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.

Also, I’ve been keeping busy with prepping for my birthday celebration, which means getting everything ready for the option of paid subscriptions here on Liegois Media (WordPress) and The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (Substack). I will say that given the setup of both platforms, it will be a different experience with both. I might get into some of the more technical details with you later, but it will be a lot easier to set up subscriptions on Substack while there might be more of a variety of ways to bring in revenue with WordPress, from my initial study of the platforms.

I will say that even though I might not get everything right on blogging, I think it’s better to just jump out and get going rather than overplan and worry that everything isn’t perfect when you start out. If there’s something that I can improve on though, please let me know at jasonliegois@liegois.media or in the comments.

What I’ve Been Reading/General Recommendations

Let’s keep it short this week.

I’ve been raving about Substack for a while (obviously), but some people who might not be familiar with the platform might wonder what type of writing they might find there. For a quick review of what’s going on there, you could do much worse than Substack Reads, a weekly roundup of creativity from the site suggested by readers and staff. That’s how I just found out this week that E. Jean Carroll is lurking around on Substack. Check them (both) out.

If you are interested in writing proper titles for your stories (or anything else, really), this headline capitalization tool is pretty handy. Since I’m a journalism snob, I tend to stick to the Associated Press style of capitalization.

Writing Quote of the Week

For this week, here’s a longer one from The King.

The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.

Stephen King

Final Thoughts

That is going to be IT for the newsletter this week, but trust me – there’s more to come down the line, even this weekend. Take care, everyone.

– 30 –

While I do appreciate you following this blog, I really would like you to subscribe to my Substack page. By subscribing to that page, you’ll not only be receiving my Substack newsletter, The Writing Life With Jason Liegois (the companion blog to this one), but you’ll also be signing up for my email list. Just click the button below.