blogging Archives | A.S. Akkalon

Good and bad things that happened while I was away

You might have noticed I’ve been away a while. Here are some things that happened during that time, rated by whether they are awesome or rubbish.

I love reading blog posts that give advice. If I’m already taking the advice I feel smug I’m doing things right, and if I’m not I feel like a daring rebel.

Either way, win!

I once read some advice that if you take a break from blogging and then return you shouldn’t draw attention to the fact you’ve been away. Just continue posting as you were, and most people won’t notice you were gone.

Uh, I think in this case that ship has not only sailed, it’s been eaten by a kraken.

So yes, I’ve been away, and the elephants have carried the world on through the void, as elephants are wont to do.

Here are a few other things that happened, which I know about because they happened to me, I read about them (everything you read online is true, remember?), or I made them up.

I probably didn’t make them up.

1. I missed talking with so many cool writer friends online. Rating: one wretched unicorn sobbing a pool of tears

2. More people bought Colleen Hoover’s books than bought the Bible. Rating: awesome if you’re her, rubbish if you suffer from serious writer envy

Taking stock of my writing activities

Writing a novel involves a lot more than just drafting and editing. Here I enumerate my writing activities and try to figure out why I never have time for them all.

It struck me recently that I have all these writing-related activities that I don’t do as often as I’d like or have stopped doing entirely. When I did them I thought they were valuable, but now it’s hard to find time.

Which is crazy because I’m literally working 20 hours a week from my living room chair (by the fire because it’s cold).

I should have time to do everything I want, so why don’t I?

In an effort to (begin to) answer this question, I thought I’d enumerate what these writing-related activities are. Then maybe I’ll discover some of them aren’t important. Or that I’m really lazy.

I guess we’re about to find out.

Happy birthday, dear blog

For my blog’s first birthday, I thought I’d look back over my first year blogging and spout wisdom. But then I drank tea and wrote random stuff instead.

Yesterday my blog turned a year old.

Yes, despite the constant concern that I would wake up one day with absolutely nothing to say, I’ve somehow managed to post twice a week for 52 weeks.

(To be fair, I often don’t say anything.)

The one year mark seems like the appropriate time to say certain things. Here they are.

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Answers to questions on Quora

Quora is a goldmine of questions begging to be answered. Here I respond to some of the more pressing ones.

Every few days I get an email from Quora with a tantalising subject line such as “Are British people actually polite?” or “If aliens landed on earth, how likely would it be that they take over the planet afte…?”

Darn limits on subject length!

I have 150 such unread emails sitting in my “Quora” folder in Gmail. It seems the world has a lot of important unanswered questions, so today I’m going to answer some of them.

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Good advice for life (and Sharknado)

In which I reflect on my morning’s activities and decide strategy is not my strong suit. Plus, sharks in tornados.

#1: If you’re going to watch Sharknado with your twitter friends while live-tweeting, don’t do it during your usual blog-writing time.

#2: If you’ve just watched Sharknado and have to blog, don’t promise yourself you’re not going to blog about sharks. Because you are going to blog about sharks, even if you’ve done it before.

#3: If you’re sleepy when you’re blogging, don’t trust your spellchecker when it tells you that “haev” is a perfectly acceptable word.

Continue reading “Good advice for life (and Sharknado)”