Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Working Hard or Hardly Working

Sorry I never came back yesterday. I meant to, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men. But even though I wasn't here on the blog, I was working. Off and on throughout yesterday I was tweaking Blink, and I was reading The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, I was keeping up with the industry by reading other people's blogs, and I was hanging out at the Romance Divas forum .

Right now I'm sure you're thinking to yourself that other than tweaking Blink, the rest sounds more like screwing off than working. I know how it looks, and you're probably right - it was not so much work as play, but at least it was productive play. I could've spent the day playing Tetris, or watching Judge Judy, or sleeping. Those are totally unproductive. Instead, I read a book that, while it wasn't in my genre, was filled with excellent writing and writers should be able to glean experience from anything they read. I also did my morning run through the blogosphere, and since my blogrolls consists of posts by authors, agents and editors, it's work I can enjoy.

And hanging out at Romance Divas can be incredibly productive. Most of the posts there are helpful and informative, while still being fun. It's nice to hang out with other writers - especially since none of them are out to crap on your parade. It's necessary to network, to commiserate, and to get/give a little empathy from people who truly understand.

Of course, the hour I spent watching Animal Cops was screwing off - unless I can stretch to it was location research (but I'm not writing a book set in NY or Houston or Detroit) or pretend that I'm planning a book wherein the villains are animal abusers (which I'm not).

I guess what I'm trying to do here is assuage my own guilt. I haven't written new words in a while, and that always makes me feel like a slug. But when I really look at what I'm doing with my day, it isn't nearly as slug-like as I think.

What are you up to? Anything you'd like to admit to doing that maybe isn't as work-like as it should be, but still can be labeled work?

1 comment:

  1. Sorry, I was a writing machine yesterday. lol Not that my goofing off skills aren't highly attuned, they are. I've just turned them off until my work is done.

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