Has anyone suffered from the same problem I’m currently finding myself in? I spent 11 years living in a country where access to English books, magazines etc. was limited, let alone writing magazines, outlets, classes, courses, etc. Now I find myself in reading/writing overload. So many magazines each month to read, so much stuff on the web, so many blogs to follow, so much to twitter. I find myself becoming completely inert. Which competition to enter? Which magazine to read? How do I file the great article in Writer’s Digest that I don’t need now but one day will?
I know that I shouldn’t complain about an embarrassment of riches, but seriously, I don’t know how to stay on top of everything. I hold down two jobs that can last anywhere between 10 to 15 hours a day and I never know which days I’m working or not. When I do I have no time to tweet, facebook, check out the latest literary goings on.
Even on the days I have “off” and I get to work on my novel and go to the supermarket, bank, post office, whatever, I still can’t possibly find the time to read all the great articles, blogs, tweets and references that should keep our writing community together.I could spend forever reading about writing and never actually writing.
So, writers- please tell me how you do it. Whether you have a full time job, a full time family or a full time Facebook obsession. How do you make sure that you stay abreast of what is going on in the writing world? How do you not feel guilty about not keeping up your blog and twitter account or more importantly not checking in on all the blogs and twitter accounts of writers whom you admire? How do you keep your writing goals on track without becoming isolated from the writing community around you?
I’d love to hear your tips and priorities!
Happy writing
Ignore print media entirely. Dead tree media is dead. Don’t read anything you can’t download and file intelligently on your hard drive or mobile device.
That’ll knock out a good deal of the crap.
If you read books, cut out fiction altogether. Make some exceptions if the author is long dead, but otherwise avoid contemporary commercial fiction like the plague it is.