Monday 27 June 2011

Inadvertently Linked

So I'm not a technically-skilled person. There is some technology I love and some I use heavily - but plenty that I don't understand. So I genuinely didn't realise - until I had it pointed out to me today - that when I post on other blogs, my name comes up with a link to my own blog ... !
For those who've clicked through, sorry to disappoint!
Over the last year, I've been either a/ too busy writing to blog or b/ too stressed NOT writing to blog. A fair mixture of both. I can't write when I'm not happy but I'm never happy when I'm not writing.
There's been a blank over the past few months. A few things happened to jolt my world a little, throw it all into a different light. It takes time, the wisdom goes, to adjust to great changes. Like grieving, you go through stages of disbelief and anger to acceptance. I never seem to do the anger stage and I'm not sure I do the disbelief too often either. Believing the worst always seems easy enough! But managing it ... well, that just takes time.
So when the work kept coming back, and the comments were kind but negative, I knew they were right. Not to waste their time or mine, I stopped working on the womag fiction. I turned instead to something longer that needed a slow burn, as that seemed to be where my mind was, needing time and a slower pace. I bought a new notebook and begin to fill it with the thoughts surrounding my book. That's the one that normally gets pushed to one side because after all, if your time is limited, and you only have two hours to work that day, then it makes more sense to write the immediate - ie the one that will pay. And the thing, also, that builds a reputation with a fiction editor for a constant flow of reliable stories. So the book until then had always been pushed into the corners that were left after that.
Now it's been out of its corner, stretching and looking pleased with itself (must deal with this anthropomorphosising - I blame my daughter who can have feelings for even a rejected piece of cereal) and it's coming together. And in the meantime, the ability to write has begun to return. I've sent off three pieces of work in the past fortnight - awaiting responses - but I believe they're good. They're certainly viable!
So now I know - when I post on another (fabulous, up to speed, professional, crabbit) blog, my own small shadow follows behind me! It was Nicola Morgan (Help! I Need a Publisher!) who so kindly took the time to point this out to me ... and I realise now how things link up. If it's a world wide web, I'm the spider who was sitting in the dark corner. So I'll hope to start building my own little web and you'll have to forgive me while I work it all out.
You'll have noticed, for example, that I can't do links yet!
And don't get me started on Facebook. That's another whole post.