Progress Update

So I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of hours this week at Panera, I’m about halfway through reading my first draft, and, you know, progress is being made.

Yay! Progress!

I’ve made an online writing buddy, and we’re both pretty much at the same stage with our writing, so we’ve been going back and forth talking about our manuscripts and our worries/troubles/etc.

And I’m working on trying to learn the whole social media thing, because I went to a literary agents panel at the Festival of Books and they said that if you can start building an audience, it looks good when you’re querying.

SO THANKS, GUYS. Because all like, ten of you who have subscribed to my blog? You’re helping me build an audience I could maybe put into a query letter to an agent saying, “Look, see? People read my stuff. I’m not invisible!” Not that I’m doing this blog for readers – I don’t want to fool myself into thinking what I have to say is interesting. I think what I’m trying to say is, thanks for the support you’ve shown me so far. I hope I can do the same for some of you, too.

And I blather on.

It’s the double-edged sword with a blog, isn’t it? Because I made this blog for myself and didn’t expect any followers, but now that I have you guys my posts are beginning to change, because while I’m writing there’s a voice in the back of my head saying ‘someone might read this! make it count!’ and then when I get no likes or comments or new followers from a post I think, ‘what did I do wrong? That last post must have been terrible. Maybe I should delete it?’

So instead of just writing for myself without abandon, I start to worry about what other people might think. (but then if I made this blog private, I think it would bore me.)

I appreciate you guys who have taken the time to read, though. I really do! I’m not trying to push anyone away with this post. It’s just curious how my mindset changes when I feel the slightest bit under a microscope. And that’s with an anonymous blog with nobody reading!

I’m not sure what the takeaway is with this yet. Something to do with recognizing where my headspace is while writing, maybe. Something about learning to be comfortable with the idea of being read, I don’t know. It’s still just vapors, but I think it will take shape. I just don’t want to put a lot of brain energy into it yet.