Getting off to A Late Start

The year 2014 is barely underway and I already feel like I’m way behind. February is already looming and I haven’t even finished my list of New Year’s resolutions that I started at the end of December. I set lots of great goals for the year but lost them within the first week.


Yesterday I found all my charts I’d started last month with everything I was going to accomplish this year and realized nothing was filled in. So now I am facing the second month of the year without having accomplished my first month’s goals.

Oh well, it is never too late to start and that’s what I am doing now. One of my goals this year is to be more constant with my blogs. Why? Well, I find that blogging, like teaching, helps me as a writer too. Here are a few points to consider:


Any sort of writing can lead to more writing.  What I find is that for me any sort of writing can be helpful because it gets me in the writing mood. It makes me sit down at the computer keyboard and start to put words together. Before long, even if I am writing something nonfiction, I start thinking about my characters and my stories and what I want to say next.

Blogging can make me do research at times. If I am working on a blog about writing, I find myself more apt to pick up one of my many writing books and look through it for  inspiration or ideas.  Usually I end up finding things I can apply to my own work or ideas I can incorporate into my classes.

Blogging has also introduced me to new authors and new genres. In the past I have had guest authors at my blogs or appeared as a guest on other author’s blogs. To do that I have had to research those authors and in reading over their blogs I’ve found some great books I didn’t realize were out there.  I also found inspiration to work on my new historical novel and just yesterday I read a blog on writing history and science fiction and why they are similar. It made me think and gave me some ideas for the future.

Blogging lets me get things off my chest and my mind. We all get frustrated in our writing at times and blogging about something that irritates me allows me to discuss those things and move on.

Blogging also allows me to express excitement too. It lets me share conferences or events I’ve attended where I learn things or discovered new ideas about writing. Again, that can lead to increased production on my own fiction. 

So now I’ve finished step one. I am going to work more on my blogs – look for The Writing Corner on Wednesday and my Champagne Daze celebrations on Friday. This Wednesday I will be blogging at Savvy Authors on how to even out the writing roller coaster.


Starting next week I will also be doing a Write That Novel blog on Monday. It’s Kindle release day for my Dead Man’s Rules suspense book and I’ll be writing about why I enjoy working with a small publisher, The Wild Rose Press.