My Internet Diet

I've been on an Internet diet for the last ten days. It was helped by having intermittant internet access, but I haven't read a single publishing article or blog, or been on either Facebook or Twitter, or any of the writing forums I'm part of AT ALL.

I haven't lost pounds, but I've gained words. Thousands of them, in fact. Perhaps not as many as I'd hoped, but still - a lot more than I've produced in a single week since the start of this year. Result!

And as a side product I'm feeling much less stressed by writing generally. Let's face it, the publishing industry is all over the place at the moment and no one knows where it's going to end up or when it's going to stabilise. What I've realised is that industry-ignorant writers who produce novels are better placed than industry informed writers who don't produce novels.

I've come off the wagon once. I went to a launch party for a friend, the fabulous Liz Kessler, author of the Emily Windsnapp series and there were several YA, teenage and children's writers there to gossip with. It was a fun evening, but I definitely had industry indigestion the next day.

Like any crash diet, you can't sustain it for ever so I'm back on the social media, but this time it's going to be controlled. No more endless reading of blogs and articles. From now on, my writing comes before others.

Don't Be Grotty, Be Writing

I had a grotty week a couple of weeks ago. There was all this stuff about e-publishing flying around and a lot of people were telling me either about authors who weren't having their contracts renewed, or about publishing people being sacked, or about the big name authors signing contracts for squillions, or about the market moving into historicals! crime! historical crime!

I read it all - every contradictory blog, every triumphant/despondant Tweet, every forum posting. I chatted to other writers who were hopeful/elated/suicidal. And it was the end of term and I was tired so ended up being confused and a bit hot and bothered about what I was doing. Or rather, what I wasn't doing.

Because while I was reading and blogging and Tweeting and posting on Facebook and chatting to writers and readers on line and in person, I sort of forgot what it is I actually do. Which is write.

The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the information out there. Perhaps other people handle it better, but there's so much going on I find it hard to draw a line between what is interesting to know and what I need to know. It's interesting to know about new developments and news (good and bad) in publishing, but do I really need to know them?

Or, to put it another way, do I need to know them more than I need to finish my novel? Umm....

So my message to myself is the title of this post: Don't be grotty, be writing.