The Importance Of Chatting With Other Authors

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of hanging out with three amazing ladies - Leigh K. Hunt, Cassie Hart and T. G. Ayer. These writers have become dear friends since I met them in 2010. We formed a Facebook group first - Inklings. Through posting, sharing and leaving screeds of comments, we got to know each other.

And then in late July this year, I got to meet Leigh and Cassie face-to-face. Tee and I flew down, from Auckland to Wellington, for the night and we spent 48 hours basically talking about writing. It was awesome. I came away exhausted, yet totally inspired. It was cool to be in a room of people that didn't mind you harping on about your passion. We never tired of it. The conversation would lull for a moment or the topic might drift to something family related, but within half an hour we were right back to chatting about writing.

It made me realize how important it is to spend time with people who understand the craft, who are passionate about storyline, character development, and the intricacies of writing. We were able to discuss cover design, marketing tips...have a little moan about the challenging aspects of this job.

I guess the purpose of this post is to encourage you to get involved with other authors. Whether it be online or through face-to-face contact, make the time to share your writing journey with others who will understand it. You will get so much more out of the experience if you do.

Good Stuff To Know

Welcome to the March edition of Good Stuff To Know.

Because I've been holed up in my writing cave over the last few weeks, I haven't found as many articles as I usually do, but I still found some I'd really like to share.

My favourite article this month is by Mark Coker. He shared his opinion on the 5 Steps to Boost E-book Sales. I totally agreed with his opinions and thought it was an excellent post... well worth reading.

In no way am I a Twitter genius, so when I found this article - Top 10 Ways To Create Hashtags on Twitter - I jumped all over it. There are some good points here. I haven't put them into practice yet, but I plan to.

I wrote an article on Indies Unlimited last month sharing about how important I think it is to write the stories inside you and not just follow the trends of publishing. Bookshelf Muse published a similar post some time ago now. Because I think theirs was far better written, I'm going to share their version of the same message :-D Lengthening the Chain

And lastly - I have just started reading an excellent book that my friend recommended to me. Thanks Leigh K. Hunt!! 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron. I'm only half way through it, but the author is making a lot of sense. Her advice is really easy to implement and I tried out one strategy yesterday with much success. For only $0.99, I'd say this book is definitely worth having on your e-reader.

That's me for March. Do you have any helpful tips or articles you've discovered? Feel free to share them in the comments section.

Thanks for stopping by!