I’m honored to have been invited by writer Harvey Stanbrough to join a group of Professional Writers in contributing to a daily blog post on aspects of the writing life.
Along with five other writers, I’ll write a weekly post on the trials and thrills of being a writer. As well as the six regulars, there’s a small group of others who will rotate posting on a Sunday.
Now, I kind of feel like I ought to be holding my hand up for having imposter syndrome. I do have numerous professional publications to my name, but I’m still working to figure out how to actually do this writing thing for my livelihood. There are many out there so much more qualified than I to talk about being a professional writer.
Still, I hope that my posts might offer some pointers for younger writers still coming along. Perhaps even for some readers who might like some insights into my writing process.
My posts go out each Monday (effectively Tuesday here in New Zealand). You can read them here.
The other writers and days are:
And the Sunday crew will be:
It’s been fun writing the first few of the blogs (trying to make sure I’m ahead). I find myself writing differently to the way I do here. In a way I feel like I’m finding out my own writing process as I write about it.
Anyway, please stop by the site if you feel so inclined. There are free email subscriptions ready to go if that’s your thing too.
Writing about a work in progress again here. Maybe that’s going to be my new thing for a while.
My daughter has watched me writing up a storm for the last few years. Her question, why didn’t I write a story about her? Fair question. After all, shouldn’t she always be uppermost in my thoughts? How could I be writing about strangers?
Seems to me that I’m spending all my writing time working to get over and unlearn all the bad advice from years (decades) of well-intentioned suggestions, poorly considered courses and lengthy apparently learned blog posts.
I’m deep in the heart of a writing a novel at the moment. Tritium Blaze, book two of The Jupiter Files series (Deuterium Shine, the first book should be out later in the year, then book two sometime next year. Cover image by Philcold | Dreamstime).
Ever since I’ve been writing and submitting manuscripts to publishers, I’ve needed a way to keep track of those submissions. I’ve been around long enough that those first submissions went as a printed manuscript, inside a full-sized envelope, with postage on a slightly smaller envelope inside. To match the very physical nature of this, my tracking system also exploited the benefits of paper and ink. An accounting book, to be precise. And mostly pencil, since it lends itself to updates more readily than ink.
So I’m posting here a photo of my Sir Julius Vogel award. It’s cool, and I guess I’m bragging a bit. But see those three folders underneath? Those are my rejection slips. You know, the letter you get from a publisher who for one reason or another isn’t taking your story. Gathered over more years than I care to admit.
I neglected to give anything more than a passing mention that I got interviewed at the Asimov’s blog, specifically about my story in the March April 2018 issue.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 