What To Do with the New Writing Year

Are you staring at a whole new year
lying before you?
I hope you are quickly getting your writing grove back
after the holidays.
Of course, there's more to life than writing ... hope that's getting in gear too.

While we mull the future, it's a good idea to reconsider the pit falls that plagued us during the last year. No place is better for keeping tabs on publishing chicanery than Writer Beware, and Victoria Strauss wrote a great retrospective of the 2011 publishing year. I'm sure someone will re-try some of these tricks, so read and be aware.

Of course, everyone's talking about what they should do. Imagine my delight when I found Chuck Wendig talking about 25 Things Writers Should Stop Doing on his blog Terribleminds. [Loved the title of his blog too.] Thanks to Dean Wesley Smith for the link. Guess I should warn you that Wendig's mind is as profane as mine. Guess his mommy didn't pound politeness into him. Guess, mommies don't mind if guys don't have polite mouths.

Maybe I should mention how important it is to get your information right, and I'd say this is especially if you are creating a medievalish fantasy world. Way too many writers get caught up in anachronisms. Jeri Westernson,  who writes the Crispin mysteries set in medieval times, just wrote a blog about ten myths about the medieval world -- Top Ten Myths About the Middle Ages.

Westerman's blog's a very good example of a topic blog based on her writing research. If you are even remotely interested in the Middle Ages, she's well worth following. Pay special attention to the end of her blog.   

Progress?

Have been revising and cleaning table tops to look for the story beginning I hand wrote while the desktop convalesced from a virus. Found the pages, but haven't gotten close to typing them into the computer. Guess, I doomed to being a slow writer ... even though I tried NaNoWriMo to see if I could speed up.

Big accomplishment? Changed the name of the Half-Elven WIP from The Somant Trouble to The Troubles with Traitors.