Advice From a Pro (i.e. not me)

I know that I’ve written quite a lot about figuring out how to fit writing, blogging, twitter, Facebook, and breathing into life simultaneously.  From the comments I have seen here and on other blogs, this “balancing” issue is up there with writer’s block for problems we (try to) deal with.

I know somebody out there commented (Dennis Langley, was it you?) that they’d love to hear how a published author handles this.  When I read that I thought, “Yeah, me too.”  Who among us wouldn’t like a bunch of advice from somebody successfully doing what we are trying to do (that’s why we read blogs, right)??

About two weeks ago, I realized that there is a successful author* – of a series nonetheless – who has a website/blog and Facebook page that she also manages… and she’s rather active on both, posting frequently.  One of her recent posts mentioned a writing workshop she’s doing.  When I read that, I wondered, “Why not ask?”

I dropped her a FB message asking if she’d be willing to share her thoughts on balancing all the stuff writers have to do, since she is clearly active online and is cranking out books (and bonus chapters, short stories on the web, etc) on a regular basis.

She wrote back (I’m in shock).

Basically, she thinks it’s a great idea (or she’s flattering me) and said she’d try to do something like that if it seemed like there was demand.

I’ll admit, I was nervous.  Many of the people who comment seem to be readers rather than writers (wouldn’t that be nice?  I know, I need to finish the book first, but still?).  Before I’d finished reading the reply, she’d posted a question about it on FB.

“Question: would people be interested in a new “Writing Wednesdays” feature on the website?   The idea would be to address the how to’s of writing a book….”

After over 60 “likes” and a couple dozen affirmations in comments, it is set to start on 5/16/12.

So, dear readers, if you would like to hear about writing from somebody doing it successfully (and blogging, and FB, and doing events, etc), you can check it out at Lauren Willig’s site (starting 5/16).  Until then, you can request topics of interest in the comments of her post announcing the Writing Wednesdays.  So, if you’ve got other questions you’d like to ask a pro, now’s your chance!

Enjoy!

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*Lauren Willig writes the Pink Carnation series.  I would call these historic romance (in the movie sense, although there are a couple that are a little more along the bodice-ripping line) with a “who’s the spy” mystery element.  The books are connected by an overarching modern relationship where the couple are discovering these characters and relationships while researching the potential identities of the spies.

As some of you know, romance is not my typical genre, but I find these to be fun reads (brain candy, as I call it).  The author seems to have fun writing them and some of the characters are rather funny.  Despite it being a series, the ladies are not carbon copies of each other (there’s everything from spitfire to meek in personality, for example) and not all the men are Prince Charming (some are more like vipers).  They all make up a cast of rather amusing characters.

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