Writing | Amy C. Shaw

Let’s Talk About Tumblr

June 20, 2014 • 26 Comments

This is probably a blasphemous thing to do on a WordPress blog, but this isn’t abandoning one format for the other. It’s simply about expanding my horizons.

I read something a few months back that really stuck with me. It was from author Jon Acuff (who went from blogger of Stuff Christians Like to writing books to writing and speaking about chasing your dreams), and he mentioned that he asked a group of teens who out of them read traditional blogs, such as what you are reading right now. Not a single hand was raised.

It shouldn’t have been so shocking to me. I know a few teenagers do read this blog, so obviously this is not the case all across the board, but I imagine that was a decent sample group. I mean, I work with teenagers at church, and I know:

1. They communicate via Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, etc. All short and sweet.

2. They might use Facebook a little, but not much.

3. They don’t really do e-mail.

(By the way, if any of you girls read this blog but have never told me before, *waves!*)

Since then, the thought of starting a Tumblr has crept into my mind (maybe before too). But what would I do with Tumblr, I wonder?

1. Post pretty pictures (like I do on Pinterest, but I would just have to pick one instead of going on a rampage of posting 50 beautiful dresses in one sitting)?

2. Write short anecdotes about… life? writing? books and movies?

3. Reblog Fitz-Simmons GIFs?

I already feel like I spend too much time online and not enough writing or… you know… exercising or cleaning or *insert other responsible adult thing here*.

Anyhow, why am I so concerned about what teens do online? Because I want to write for them! If Tumblr is the best way for me to connect with them as an author, then I should probably have one. Several YA authors have embraced this format, such as Kiera Cass and Veronica Roth. And while at this point, I would be surprised if I quereyed agents this year (though there’s six months left this year, so I suppose it’s possible! But it would certainly be much later this year), when I do, I want to have an established presence already. I don’t want to basically say, “Hey, check out my social media presence that I started last week to impress you.”

I already want an audience base, which I have with some wonderful people who read this blog and have told me they totally want to read what I write one day (I’m so honored every time anyone says this by the way, truly), but I want to be up to date on things. I don’t think any author should feel pressured to be on every form of social media by any means, but since I have decided that for now, my Instagram is for my real life friends and not something I really share outside of that, all I really have that is “teen friendly” is Twitter. (Unless Pinterest counts? I’m not sure. I actually have a decent Pinterest following.) And while I usually tweet every day, it’s only occasionally interesting (or maybe it’s never interesting, I don’t know).

But I don’t want any avenue pulling me away from the ultimate goal of publishing a book.

Of course, there’s a lot to say about motivation and self-control, and I should probably stop blaming the Internet. 🙂

Anyhow, please share your thoughts about Tumblr if you have experience with it! Do you have one? What do you post on yours? What would you like to see from me if I decided to create one? How much time do you typically spend on Tumblr in a day? Does it have a good app? Please enlighten me!

The Wheels Fell Off My Bus But I Don’t Mind

May 1, 2014 • 6 Comments

April is over, and I failed to meet my word goal for Camp NaNoWriMo, even though I lowered it 10,000 words from my original goal of 20,000. But it didn’t just slip past me. I simply stopped writing new material after the first week and a half and I knew what I was doing. My April was filled with a lot of things going on in my life, and I quite frankly wasn’t inspired to write any story other than my November NaNo project.

Now, I do understand that I need to write even when life is crazy and I’m not inspired, but I think you can take a break sometimes, so after about a week and a half or forcing myself to write in April, I just stopped, minus a little editing for my other project and a couple of other odds and ends added to older story ideas (I have well over a dozen story documents that have been started but are no where near fleshed out, but that’s another post for another time, I suppose). I was busy, but I had chances to make the time, and I knew it.

But over the next month or two, I believe I will have the chance to refocus. May is already shaping up to look like an interesting month, but a good one. So after my failed attempt at Camp NaNoWriMo, I do intend to reevaluate how I spend my time writing, and trying to construct a more workable schedule for me. I don’t intend to always allow the busy nature of life to delay my dreams. I need to keep writing, and keep practicing, and slowing down on this blog has been helpful. Thanks to everyone for their patience. Having friends who are rooting for me seriously helps me.

Worn Out

April 14, 2014 • 18 Comments

You know when you have just weekends in a row that are packed with things to do, in addition to your already usually busy weeks?

That’s what April has been for me. And will continue to be.

And to make it worse, I’ve been feeling some pressure of trying to complete this 20,000 word goal for Camp NaNoWriMo that had potential to be feasible, but when working on a story I am not excited about and have not plotted out, and when so busy, well, I have found myself falling further and further behind my daily average word count. I think I’m going to decrease my goal word count, to 10,000 but it feels like a cop-out.

I could try to push myself harder for 20,000 words, but I don’t want to push myself in ways I don’t need to be pushed. I needed it in November. Right now, I really just need to edit and improve my NaNoWriMo project, and then once I finally get it off to some beta readers so THEN I can think about something else IF I want to. I thought I might reach that place by this month but I didn’t, and so now the edits have been delayed by forcing myself to write for a story that I am not as interested in as that one. And when it comes to blogging, I feel I’m in a pre-slump, as Stormy put it recently. I’m afraid I might burn out soon. But I think I can avoid it.

And I think the way to avoid is may be to post less over the next month or so… and not beat myself over it.

I already post less than I want to due to time. I try to post three times a week, but I would prefer four times, and sometimes I end up at two times a week. And I feel guilty when that happens. But I don’t get upset with others when they need to slow down or take a break. So I hope and assume you would all feel the same about me.

So for the rest of April and possibly through May, expect even less activity here. I will post only when I absolutely want to, meaning not because I want new comments (because confession: sometimes that’s my motivation) ,but because I have a post that I am excited to share. Who knows, that might mean one week I’ll post 3 times and the next week I won’t post anything.

Meanwhile, I need to focus on editing my November NaNo project, focus on other life stuff, and take each day one step at a time.

So this is not an official break or hiatus, but please be patient with me as I try to get my mojo back. I probably would have stopped this a while ago if all of you weren’t so awesome, so thank you for that!

A Tale of Two Fails

March 27, 2014 • 16 Comments

Have you ever written a post you were so excited to share, only for something from it to end up becoming irrelevant just weeks later?

Yep, that happened to me just now. Twice.

Remember how excited I was to discover how I could download audiobooks to my phone (or Nook) without worrying about my data plan? I had a couple of free audiobooks I had acquired late last summer and finally figured how super easy it was to transfer them to a device with an Overdrive app, and that I could listen to them without an Internet connection! I transferred Sherlock Holmes over to my Nook successfully, but after that, NOTHING ELSE WORKED. I tried my other free audiobook as well as a library audiobook, and I tried transferring to both my phone and my Nook, but nothing happened. It seems Overdrive simply stopped transferring my stuff over after doing so ONE TIME.

I assume that this has something to do with the update Overdrive keeps telling me I need. But the problem is, anytime I try to update it, I can never get the update to come up! Just a browser window set on the default home screen comes up. I tried doing a search on their website about getting the update, but to no avail. I thought about downloading it all over again but chickened out, afraid it might mess something up. So alas, while I enjoyed listening to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (particularly because it’s basically just short stories, so you could listen to like one 30 minute story a day and feel satisfied), it seems that’s my only audiobook option until I can figure this mess out! If anyone has any ideas, please share!

Fail #1 goes to Overdrive.

Fail #2 goes to Camp NaNoWriMo.

Remember how I was excited for this “camp” in April where I can set my own word goal and I was going to start working on a new story and I asked all my blogging friends who are also participating to let me know their username so I could request for them to be in my “cabin” and we could all cheer each other on as we wrote throughout the month?!

I requested whatever the max amount of friends was, like five or six, and I know some of them requested me too.

BUT NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM ENDED UP IN MY CABIN.

Seriously NaNoWriMo?! What was even the point if you were just going to assign me to whoever the heck you felt like anyway?!

I considered, briefly, staying with these strangers. Maybe it would be a good experience for me, yadda yadda yadda. But you know, it’s going to be stressful enough without feeling like I have to be accountable to people I don’t know. I only wanted to do a cabin so I could cheer on blogger friends. So I opted out of that cabin, and all cabins, completely. And I decided to take matters into my own hands.

So, if you’re a blogger friend who is participating in Camp NaNoWriMo next month and are interested in being a part of a “group,” regardless of whether or not you’re in a cabin, I have set up a Google + Community for the occasion. I set it as private because I didn’t want random people finding it and joining it, so either leave me a comment below or send me a Twitter DM with your e-mail address so I can send the invite to you directly. And as long as you’ve “spoken” to me at least one other time and are a blogger, I’ll send one to you. And we can cheer each other on our way, thankyouverymuchCampNaNo!

Have you experienced any “fails” lately?

New Writing Goals!

March 8, 2014 • 36 Comments

As many of you know, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time this past November. It was hard, but such a worthwhile experience. I exceeded the 50,000 word goal and even completed the first draft of a brand new novel ALL IN ONE MONTH. Considering that the first novel I wrote took, uh, years, I was floored I was even capable of that, even if a lot of what I wrote needed to be reworked, revised, rewritten, or flat out deleted. But at only 51K, I knew my story was still a little underdeveloped and I would need to beef it up. I stepped away from my story in December but finally came back to it in January, though I didn’t add much until these past few weeks.

Now this is where I’m at:

It feels good to have 10,000 more words that my November goal, and to feel my story has some more of the development it needed. It still needs work, and I am very aware of this. I have decided to spend the rest of March writing and revising as much as I can stand, and deciding who the very first beta readers are going to be that I will send it to, the ones I trust will read through the crap and see the good stuff and tell me where to expound on the good and get rid of the bad.

Then for April I have decided I will reset my sights to something new…

Camp NaNoWriMo is run by the same folks who run the November event, but it’s done in either April or July, and you set your own word count goal ranging from 10,000 – 999,999 (for the record, pretty sure I’ll never be able to do the latter for one story! Especially in one month!). You can’t tell from my profile page here, but I have decided to set a goal of 20,000 words, which after what I did in November is extremely doable, but is also more than I generally do in a month. It averages to 5,000 words a week, which helps break it down into smaller, even more doable goals.

As you can see, the title is “TBD,” meaning I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet. I do know it will be one of my older ideas that I’ve started but not gotten very far with, and I think I know which one I’m leaning towards, but I can also change my mind over the next few weeks.

After April, hopefully my 2-3 beta readers will have suggestions to help me dive back into revising Earthbound (my project from November), and I’ll probably rework that and go through more beta readers again before I get back to what I write in April. But after what NaNoWriMo did for me, I can’t ignore that setting these goals for myself and having the chance to mark these milestones really works for me, much more than when I’m just trying to write willy-nilly, and so I want to do it again to get the ball rolling on another story.

If you’re doing Camp NaNoWriMo in April, let me know! I was thinking about doing the cabin thing but want to request cabin mates I know!

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