Last week was both incredibly busy (with stuff not related to this whole thing), and weirdly productive, but not in a way that I really noticed. All week, I was convinced that I wasn’t actually doing anything, but now, when I look back over it… it was one of my best weeks since I started this.
First of all, I’m counting the upgrade to MT4. Maybe I shouldn’t—I would’ve done it anyway, and it’s not like it was difficult—but I’ve got a couple of web-based projects I’ve been thinking about for a while, but putting off until I could decide whether to go with Movable Type, or Wordpress or whatever. I’m slowly getting used to the changes to MT, and… I think I like them. And now I can start moving forward on some of those other things.
(And it’s not like I’m counting all the other incredibly productive things I did that don’t actually contribute to the project. I mean… I started my Christmas shopping. In August. Yeah, it’s one little stocking-stuffer, but given my habit of doing all my shopping in the last three days before Christmas… damn. I just hope I don’t forget I bought it, or where I put it.)
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I joined a couple of the writing groups I was looking at. I’m still getting used to them, and I still don’t know if they’ll do me any good, but it’s something. It was a surprisingly difficult search: there are a lot of groups out there, and they all have their good points, but there were none at all that really… clicked for me. I’m going to keep looking around. Actually, I’m starting to wonder if I should start my own writing group, if I could come up with the sort of thing I keep looking for but not finding. The only real problem would be finding people to get it off the ground. (I am, after all, joining these groups specifically because I want to connect with other writers.)
I also spent some time looking for some short-story markets that have (a) themes, and (b) deadlines. I’m having a terrible time lately getting serious writing done (I don’t think my current work in progress is quite ready to be written yet, and none of my other ideas really appeal), so I’m looking for a little push. Again, nothing’s quite clicked, but I need to look a little deeper.
That’ll be this week.
