Morsels (1-17-24)
Sometimes I think my writing life can be measured in morsels—tasty & bite-sized to be sure, but not, I'm happy to report, as in the sample sentence in the last connotation listed in Merriam-Webster: "a negligible person."
Yeah, I still like to look up words, especially the roots of any I happen to be focusing on. In this case, morsel was derived from (wait for it...) Latin mordēre "to bite" with Anglo-French & Middle English ushering it our way, of course.
Anyway, what does the concept of morsel actually have to do with my writing, you might ask. Plenty.
How many tropes have you seen about writers delving into their craft for hours on end? Staying up late? Rising before dawn? Wallowing in their creative zone for hours on end, ignoring the world around them till some dramatic event yanks them back to reality?
Well, that sure as hell ain't my writing life.
I'm lucky to be able to squeeze in ten minutes to draft this post while eating lunch. Sure I get up early or stay up late depending on circumstances, but the lion's share of my writing comes from times like this—a seam in the action, so to speak. In my experience, a few minutes of downtime waiting for the next round of reality to show its face can work wonders with nudging a writing piece along.
Another way morsels make their presence known has to do with the incremental steps I take in the revision process. For example, a proofread I think might take two weeks to complete often takes four— Wait a minute, that's the case for a lot of people working on projects, so enough on that.
Finally, there's the tapering off of responses from readers & reviewers. As I mentioned in my previous post, I got caught up in thinking that since the initial response to my first self-published novel was better than expected, the trend might reach some mystical state of perpetual motion. (Cue the laugh track.) Currently, however, morsels from one social platform or another do show up, the visitor column on this website ticks up now & then, an unexpected review of Pearl Fields & the Oregon Meltdown shows up on a book blog, a few more than average pages are read on Kindle Unlimited, and so on.
That's why I never complain about any action in the positive column of my independent author scorecard. After all, one tasty, bite-sized morsel might lead to another, right?
Keep you posted.
Drew
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown
Yeah, I still like to look up words, especially the roots of any I happen to be focusing on. In this case, morsel was derived from (wait for it...) Latin mordēre "to bite" with Anglo-French & Middle English ushering it our way, of course.
Anyway, what does the concept of morsel actually have to do with my writing, you might ask. Plenty.
How many tropes have you seen about writers delving into their craft for hours on end? Staying up late? Rising before dawn? Wallowing in their creative zone for hours on end, ignoring the world around them till some dramatic event yanks them back to reality?
Well, that sure as hell ain't my writing life.
I'm lucky to be able to squeeze in ten minutes to draft this post while eating lunch. Sure I get up early or stay up late depending on circumstances, but the lion's share of my writing comes from times like this—a seam in the action, so to speak. In my experience, a few minutes of downtime waiting for the next round of reality to show its face can work wonders with nudging a writing piece along.
Another way morsels make their presence known has to do with the incremental steps I take in the revision process. For example, a proofread I think might take two weeks to complete often takes four— Wait a minute, that's the case for a lot of people working on projects, so enough on that.
Finally, there's the tapering off of responses from readers & reviewers. As I mentioned in my previous post, I got caught up in thinking that since the initial response to my first self-published novel was better than expected, the trend might reach some mystical state of perpetual motion. (Cue the laugh track.) Currently, however, morsels from one social platform or another do show up, the visitor column on this website ticks up now & then, an unexpected review of Pearl Fields & the Oregon Meltdown shows up on a book blog, a few more than average pages are read on Kindle Unlimited, and so on.
That's why I never complain about any action in the positive column of my independent author scorecard. After all, one tasty, bite-sized morsel might lead to another, right?
Keep you posted.
Drew
Drew Faraday
Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown
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