A Different Season

It’s been a busy time these past couple of years. I haven’t written much. Not like I want to, not like I’d like to. And that’s a funny thing, you know? We say that writers write. If you’re a writer, you don’t just want to write, you do write. Maybe that’s true. We generally follow our passions. If your passion is really writing, then you’re probably going to find a way to do it.

So, why haven’t I been writing? It isn’t because it isn’t a passion. But I guess you could say that it hasn’t been the biggest thing. It hasn’t been the most important thing. When I wake up in the morning, it isn’t the first thing I think of. When I go to sleep at night, it isn’t the last thing I think of. So, I guess you could argue that I’m not being passionate about it. And I guess that would be okay.

Before I go any further, I do want to say that I am working on the next book in the series, it is just going much more slowly than I would like. But the detours have been… necessary.

The past three years or so have been revolutionary for me. I have been on a journey to discover who I am. I have been like an archeologist digging away the earth to reveal the identity buried beneath. I have been scooping away the dirt and brushing away the dust and wiping away the grime. I have been revealing things that have been hidden – hidden from others and hidden from myself. It is a long and arduous process. It is painstaking and painful. But it is indescribably rewarding both to myself and to my family.

The reason I’m telling you all of this is because my blog is changing. If you look through the paltry number of posts, you’ll see that the vast majority has something to do with writing. That’s okay, I suppose – except that it isn’t really what I think my blog should be. I mean, even at the very top, it says, “See the writer’s life. In real time.” Well, writing tips aren’t my life. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they are in the forefront of my attention because I’m learning some lesson or figuring something out or making some mistake. But they aren’t all of who I am. And I want my blog to be about who I am and what I think about things and about how I feel about things.

I guess you could call this a rebirth. It is the beginning of something new. You are going to see things that weren’t there before. You’ll see my faith, and you’ll see my struggles. In short you’re going to see who I am. Maybe no one will read it. Maybe no one will care. I need to be okay with that. I need to write it for myself, even if no one comes.

Does this mean that I’m going to be a dutiful little blogger? Probably not, even though I’d like to be. That’s another problem I’ve got: I’m not the most disciplined person in the world. But it is an opportunity to do things differently – to begin again, so to speak.

Speaking of change, that is almost certainly a topic I will explore. But I digress. I’m not here for that, at least right now. My goal for this moment is just to draw a line in the sand. And I did. So here goes.

Ugh!

It’s been forever since I’ve posted anything. What can I say? Sometimes life gets in the way. And it certainly has over the past couple of months. But, it’s really more than that, I think. It seems like forever ago, but I posted a while back about my adventures in marketing. Well, these past couple months have shown me what happens if I don’t market my book. Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

But, that’s actually good in a way. That will give me a chance to see what individual channels do. Before, I was trying to market every way I could. I was doing Facebook, the Goodreads thing, and, of course, my blog. There was some other stuff, but those were probably the main channels. This time, I’ll take a little more structured approach, I think. Maybe just start with one, add another one in, and so on. Remember, as much as I (might) sound like I know what I’m doing, I’m still figuring this stuff out.

And that point brings me to what I really wanted to post about today. I was having a conversation with a guy the other day who wants to be a writer. I’ve known the guy for a really long time. I don’t know him well, but… Okay. I guess you can say I’ve worked with him for a really long time. Anyway, we were talking in the hallway, and he started drilling me with questions about writing. He’s got a gazillion ideas floating around in his head – more than he knows what to do with (I wish I had that problem), but he can’t get any traction with an actual story. Actually, it might be better to say he gets traction for a few chapters and then stalls.

So, he wanted to know how to do it. He wanted to know how to get from the idea to the finished book. Never mind publishing and marketing and all that junk, he wanted to know how to bring order to the chaos. His biggest challenge is to not jump ship to another story when he gets stuck. As a result, he has scores of unfinished stories and books, and he has no idea how to start finishing them.

So, I remembered my blog. That’s exactly why I created it. Because I believe there are lots of people out there with a genuine talent for writing, but without the confidence or know-how to move to the next step. So, here I am, writing another post. This one doesn’t have any grand words of wisdom (as if any of them do), but it’s a start.

And that’s the best lesson I can teach people like my colleague. You have to start. Then you have to keep taking steps, and stay on course. Refuse to listen to the Siren Song, calling you off to the next shiny thing that is surely going to be easier than what you’re working on.

Until next time…

Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.

Welcome to my blog.  I’m Mike E. Miller, author of The Timekeeper’s Son, if you haven’t heard.  This blog is all about me.  Ok, maybe not all about me, but I will spend some time talking about my books and my writing career.  Plus, I’m going to add some content about writing. 

I don’t know that I’d call myself an expert, but I’m hoping that my experiences can help out some aspiring authors.  It took me a long time to get to the point where I was ready to take the plunge and write my first book.  Now that I’m in the process of publishing it, maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes, er, experience.