Saturday, December 29, 2012

Writing & Marketing Tweets from December 28, 2012


Knees are wrapped after the marathon.
That should have told me something!
I’ve had tendonitis for about two months and have rested, iced, and forced myself to reduce mileage and pace and not run on the street/sidewalk. I am though, doing easy runs on the treadmill—an instrument of torture, or so I thought until last week. Since I discovered that I can jog for an hour and read my Kindle, I’ve been in seventh heaven. I struggle with carving out reading time. Now that I can run and read, I not only renewed my membership at the gym, but I’m seriously considering buying a treadmill. Gosh, if I can run/read for an hour on someone else’s equipment, how many books could I read with my own?
 
See that’s my problem. I do things to excess and that’s how I ended up with bum knees. I ran a marathon and three weeks later ran a half-marathon. Dumb! Maybe someone half my age with more experience can do that, but not a 62-year-old newbie runner.
 
I do that with writing. I get into a writing frenzy and the house could burn down around me and I wouldn’t even smell the smoke. That ability to concentrate and focus, I suppose, is what enables a writer to get inside a character, feel their emotions, and understand what drives them, and then put it all down on paper.
 
Sometimes though, that focus can be unhealthy, at least for me. Like upping my mileage and increasing my pace was unhealthy for my knees, staying too long in my writer’s world is detrimental to relationships. I need to step away both physically and emotionally. Yes, that’s hard to do. Now, if I could only find the equivalent of a treadmill, I could do both. Nah, that wouldn’t work. I’d start writing a love scene and fall right off the dang thing! 
 
Maybe the answer is to use a training calendar like I do for running. I know exactly how many miles I need to do a day, how often I need a cross-training day, and how many rest days I need to fit in. It wouldn’t be difficult to add a word count to the calendar. Along with a word count, I could include rest days. Like resting my legs, it’s important to clear my mind, too. Then I can come back fresh and ready to write again.
 
I think I’ve just written my New Year’s Resolution. WooHoo! 
If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again: 
  1. Notes from Tabor Lane: Writing & Marketing Tweets from December 27 http://ow.ly/goS99
  2. How To Use Permanently Free Books To Increase Sales: http://t.co/Srz0gQI2 @woodwardkaren RT @elizabethscraig
  3. Book Awards and Writing Contests for Authors http://t.co/dM726Seb RT @bookgal
  4. The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Marketing http://ow.ly/goTKS via @copyblogger
  5. Why Google Hangouts On Air Should Be Part of Your 2013 Marketing Strategy
  6. http://ow.ly/goTRa via @Bookgal
  7. Is Hubris Holding You Back? http://ow.ly/goU3U via Writer Unboxed
  8. Author Marketing Guide 2.0 http://ow.ly/goUd1 by Karen Baney
  9. Goodreads Counts 20 Million Book Reviews http://ow.ly/goUoP by Jason Boog
  10. WRITING ON THE ETHER: Publishing’s New Gospel by @Porter_Anderson http://ow.ly/gp7go
  11. 40 Cool Things to Do With Your Posts *After* You Hit Publish http://ow.ly/gp9F9 via @problogger
  12. A Writer’s Life: How Public? How Private? http://ow.ly/gpB5P  by @karenmrider
  13. Why book buying stats might stifle the next great author http://ow.ly/gpCxc via @passivevoiceblg
  14. The New World of Publishing: How To Keep Production Going All Year http://ow.ly/gpCQl by Dean Wesley Smith 
  15. Should A Writer Let Her Reader's Expectations Influence Her Artistic Judgement? http://ow.ly/gpDcJ via @woodwardkaren
I’m always looking for great content to share. If you have a writing and/or marketing blog, or have a favorite that you visit often, please leave a link in the comment section. Thanks for stopping by. 
 
Happy writing & running, Kathy 

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