Saturday 5 January 2013

Busy, Busy, Busy time for a writer

Following advice during the novel writing courses I attended this year, I started to build a spreadsheet to log names and contact details of publishers agents and anyone who is connected to the literary world.

Putting my previous life skills to work I dragged up an old mailing list and applied a mean resolve to edit it. transferred the data to our desktop and then went through the e-mails to remove all of the old useless ones, upgrade others and remove those who requested it.

Suddenly after removing the ones that had been recorded twice my list is down to about a quarter of it's original list. Ah well I can always work through my old contacts and ring them and rerecord their details. Nah, I could here the broadcast of the cricket coming from the neighbour's shed.

Time for another plan, the cricket was calling.

Fast forward to today and then I steeled my resolve. I had to get into the thick of this spreadsheet today would be the day. New headings, new pages all copied pasted and edited to reveal infinite detail. Vic Writers magazine open I began first with the publishers, sorting those who were traditional publishers ad others dedicated to self publishing. This is going to be a great reference for all of my other writing and required dedication perspiration and application. Then it happened, I opened the window and heard the neighbour's TV again and the cricket was on.

At close of play the Australian cricket team still has a lot to do but not as much as me. I guess I have been busy on research, it will come in handy if I ever need to use a day at the cricket in one of my novels.

So as you can see, I have been busy, busy, busy.

3 comments:

  1. This is a great idea, Terry. You're always forging ahead with your writing endeavours and I admire that. We can all start something and have grand plans, but to do and follow through is the key to success.

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  2. Hi Chris,

    Wow that post is going to need a re-write. I really should write in a word document first and then copy/paste it into the text box. One simple little process would eliminate a whole heap of silly errors. The next tip, make sure you post comments in the right box.

    Cheers,

    Terry

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  3. Hate spreadsheets, but they're a necessarily evil for the writer who isn't always sure if they're coming or going. Talking about myself here. You're going great guns, Terry. An inspiration to many who want to be writers but have yet to find their pace.

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