Over the past two years, I have gone through a massive transformation in my writing process as an author. I’ve spent years (not gonna lie, probably close to a decade by now) working on the same story–writing and rewriting and cutting words and writing some more.
The story is nowhere close to my original idea, yet I’m a far better writer from rewriting it so many times. The last two years have really felt like my own, personal mastercourse in writing–taught by Sanderson’s BYU lectures and Writing Excuses, of course. Teaching creative writing has really helped too. There’s just something about having to make writing a novel accessible to teenagers that makes you really think through the writing process.
Now, I’m just a few thousand words away from finishing the first draft of my novel and embarking into new territory–revisions. It’s all terribly exciting and terribly scary. However, I’m hoping that as I wrap up my mastercourse on writing a novel that I begin a whole new transformation: this blog.
Looking back on my past posts, it’s obvious that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with it. My previous posts aren’t really written in my own voice; they sound like a Frankenstein version of book blogging and clickbaity long-form blog posts, only I suck at clickbait. I was striking out on a new path, trying to get my footing in what exactly I want this author’s blog to be, and I clearly was stumbling.
The problem is, looking around the Internet at author’s spaces, it doesn’t seem like authors are actually writing blogs anymore. It feels like a thing of the past. Everyone’s on social media, and it seems so silly to devote any time to a blog when it’s not the Thing anymore, nor is it exactly what you’re “supposed” to do as an author. (Start a TikTok! Have a YouTube channel! Get on Twitter every day! Noooo thank you.)
Blogging is what I love, though. Before I learned how to write a novel, I learned how to keep a blog. And I’m going back to it. Screw the popular advice! This is what I love.
I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to look like, but I do know this–I want it to be more personal. I want to take time to share what’s going on with my writing. I also love analyzing stories and breaking them apart not only as a reader and viewer but as a writer as well. I learn so much from figuring out how other writers do things. I want to share my favorite books and stories. I want to share writing tips and failures. And ultimately, I’d love to build a supportive writing community and have some virtual coworking write-ins.
For now, I’m focusing on sharing how my writing’s going. Who knows, maybe I’ll talk about Boba Fett soon. (That last episode was killer, man!) So if you’re into that sort of thing, come along if you want. I’d love to have the company on this rocky journey.
-KND
K. N. Dyer Books 