One of my favorite sites to follow on Twitter is Fuel Your Writing.

http://twitter.com/fuelyourwriting

Today it had an article about 10 Tips for Improving Your Writing Website:

http://www.fuelyourwriting.com/10-tips-for-improving-your-web-writing/

I’m not following any of them.  Well.  That’s not true.  I am sharing information (like the website info) and I’m making this blog definitely all about the writing process.  I try to be unique, slightly informal, engage, interact…  All of that.  I am NOT, however, very clear in my subject lines.  Need to work on that.  That does seem to be a fairly important point.  Sometimes I can’t even remember what the post was about.  And what?  I’m up to all of 8 posts now?

Then again, sometimes it’s all about the process.  I don’t really plan my posts out very well.  (I know…  Really?  Does it show?  Ha.)  Usually, when I sit down to write a post, I only have a very general idea and that’s only the start of it.  Once I edit a bit, only about a third of what I originally wrote shows up on the site.  And with the initial posts, I didn’t edit at all.  I thought the more raw, the better.  But now, after reading that article, I’m thinking a bit more editing couldn’t hurt.

Promised myself I wouldn’t swear on my blog.  I swear enough as it is.  Trying to keep it classy.  But now I wish I hadn’t made that promise.

And the reason?  After all that work I did last week, I sat down in front of my computer and realized that I had DONE IT ALL ON THE WRONG COPY!  That’s right.  I saved one copy of the first part of the book as an original draft, and the other as a working draft.  Only smart, right?  That way I can go back and see what I’ve taken out, what I’ve changed, if I really like it or not…  Only the previous week I edited the proper working draft, and then last week I edited the original draft.  Brilliant!  Sheesh.  That’s like Writer’s Boo-boos 101.  Right up there with not backing up my work and losing the entirety of Chapter 6 and using “your” for “you’re”.  Which I’ve also done.  But only once.  So I suppose it’s good that I learn from my mistakes.

Crappy Monday (that doesn’t count as swearing…).  I was all ready to sit down and get things accomplished and now I get to go through both copies, line by line, and compare and make sure it’s all the way I want it.  And do I bother changing the original draft back?  I feel like I have to–that was the whole point of having the original draft in the first place.  Hmm…  But wait!  Having learned that oh-so-important lesson about backing up my work, I bet I have a copy of the original already saved.  Ha!  See?  Still work, just not as much.

In considering that happy medium that I was talking about, and (once again) thinking about 180 book ideas, I realized that there is no way I could have 180 ideas.  I don’t think I could even have 20.  I feel like I came up with all of good ideas for stories when I was in high school.  And that I’ve spent so long working and editing those few ideas that I’m afraid I’ll never have another creative idea again.

I suppose I should be a little depressed by that.  Was that the only time I was creative?  In high school?  I have a whole bookshelf of multi-colored folders with stories that I started in them.  All from ten years ago.  Some I even finished.  So if I managed to make all of those ideas feasible and good, then why would I need more?  That works for me.  I’m somehow OK with that.  The writing still happens–plot occurs, characters develop.  So what if I’ve got no new ideas?