My blog has been a little quiet these past weeks, as I’ve been catching up on some writing.

I have seen a few independent writers recently close down their blogging activities on the grounds that they wanted to spend more time with their work-in-progress novels.

Writers write, right?

Well, yes, but…

The demands of the ever-growing web of social networks is insatiable.

My solution? To limit my activities to a few channels:-

• this blog (and thank you for reading me, by the way)
• LinkedIn – a wonderful set of groups (forums) to exchange views and info with other writers
• Twitter (but I ask myself, does anyone really read a fraction of what is posted?)
• facebook… well, the page is there, but as limitations grow on how many followers a post can reach, it seems to be decreasingly relevant, so I am switching to…
• Google+ (I’ll see how this goes)

And, of course, every week I receive yet another invitation to set up an Author Page on yet another book-listing site. When the time comes to update my photo – some say this is already overdue – or my list of published works, it will take a week to do the administration. So I am limiting myself to:-

• Amazon
• Smashwords
• Wattpad

And I have not yet reached the stage of finding editors, proof-readers, cover designers, ebook formatters, marketeers…

Writers write, right?

However, I have been working hard while I’ve been away from the blog…

• I recently wrote and submitted a half-dozen, brand-new stories to various themed anthologies, to good receptions. Publication dates run from mid to late 2014, so I hope to have lots of covers to add to my newly-created Author Pages (see below).
• I’m at the “responding-to-editorial-changes” stage on several of the stories. It is not easy to hack away at one’s own creative gems, to “Kill your darlings” as William Faulkner put it.
• I’ve set up those Author Pages I mentioned and prepared a number of short stories to upload to Wattpad
• I’ve also been learning lines and starting rehearsals for a stage play, in the Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies (FEATS)

Oh, what a busy life it is, once you retire 😉

END NOTE : Earlier in the year, I resolved to work on the backlog of stories started – but never completed – when new ideas intrude on the work-in-progress, my series of far-future novels. Well, I have partially succeeded; the number of uncompleted stories is reducing, although a few new ones have joined the queue.

Onward and upward!