Improving my craft

I started this post a couple of days ago, but there were just too many distractions and I didn't feel it was at a point where it was ready to go live. So, not realizing that Ghost makes posts into a draft when you exit, I deleted everything I'd written in a fit of frustration. So, now I have to start all over and there are just as many distractions because I still don't have a dedicated space to write in.

Now that I've finished reading The Marrow Thieves, I've moved on to reading magazines, mostly The Writer. The latest issue is all about digital tools and courses to organize and improve your writing. It's made me a little ashamed that I haven't done much to stay on top of the latest trends in writing and the different apps and software out there that can do everything from helping you plot your novel to generating writing prompts and making up new words.

I've foolishly figured that writing is writing, I do it every day for work, so why should I need to take courses or go to conferences? And how could it change that much from year to year? A completely stupid attitude, of course. Writing is changing all the time because language changes all the time, along with how it's presented and what kinds of writing are popular. I wish I'd put more effort into taking classes and going to conferences to exchange ideas with other writers before COVID-19 made that impossible. Obviously, there are online options, but they're not quite the same. Staying in touch with writers I've met at the classes I have taken would have been a good idea too, just to have peers to bounce ideas off of. I'll just have to do my best to keep learning and improving, and make up for lost time.

There are so many options for courses and conferences out there that it'll require a bit of research to figure out which are garbage and which are worth the time and money. Anyway, I can't ignore the distractions any longer, so I'm out for now.