How My Life Changes Affect My Storytelling
September 12, 2023 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Denise M. Colby, Word of the year, writerslifeI have made the realization this year that as my life changes through the years, the way I view my original story has changed. Change being the central word here. And my word for 2023. So what type of changes in my life am I talking about?
Life is full of changes
I knew there would be several big life changes this year on a personal level. Two children graduating and one getting engaged being among the largest change. I also have been making strides in some health choices, adding in yoga daily and working with a doctor to heal specific areas of my body. And then the bonus life change was the addition of our puppy, Ace, in June.
But the other reason I chose the word change this year was for my writing. I wanted to change the way I edited my story. Change my phrasing. And not be afraid to change my characters. All for the better, of course. I felt focusing on the word change could help me mentally make significant changes in my story to make it stronger.
Age changes us
What I didn’t plan for was really thinking about my story from a different perspective. An age perspective. See, when I started writing my story over ten years, I was in a different time in my life. My kids were younger, I was younger and my relationships were younger.
Young love looked different to me. And I’m not as naive as I once was. Life changes over the years have exposed me to new perspectives.
But I’m not upset about all of this. I’m just more aware. And have to make decisions now based on this new awareness. Taking some time to figure out what I believe in, how I view the world, and what’s important to me will help me write better stories. My own life changes can help me develop stronger characters who go through their own life changes.
Change is important
I have enjoyed learning about the word change this year. Change allows us to move forward in life and experience new and exciting things. We all change and evolve daily, weekly, yearly.
I think our writing changes and evolves with us as well.
Do you think your writing changes as you grow older? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.
Denise Colby loves to write about her word of the year and share quotes that include that specific word in them. Each word builds a new layer in her writing journey (and her life). In 2022, her word was Work. This year, her word is change.
Writing Time Literally Going to the Dog
August 12, 2023 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Denise M. Colby, writing lifeWe have a new puppy, so my free writing time is literally going to the dog right now.
So instead of writing some great blog post, I thought I’d share some cute pics of our puppy.
But first, being the historical writer that I am, I looked up the phrase, go to the dogs, just to make sure I had its meaning correct. And sure enough, the summary meaning is becoming ruined.
Although it was originally tied to bad food that wasn’t good for human consumption. For this post, I thought I would write a fun, cute article that basically says my writing time has been ruined. That I’m distracted by the dog. Hence, all my writing time is going to the dog.
Meet the new dog
So, without any further ado, let’s meet our new puppy, Ace.
This is the first day we brought him home from a lab rescue group. About five months old, he’s super sweet and pretty easy going.
Of course the call came in the week of my son’s high school graduation, so things were pretty chaotic. But we had to go with the flow if we wanted to adopt him. My word this year is change, and although I knew there would be a lot of change this year, getting a puppy wasn’t on my radar! But he’s stolen our hearts and we love him.
Naming the Dog
Now, it took us about a week to name him. This is mostly our son’s dog, so he had some cool names he was coming up with. A huge 80’s music fan, Huey was at the top of the list, as well as Elo, and a few others. But what tipped the scales was when my other son threw out the name Ace. As in Batman’s dog Ace (from the Justice League cartoons). Being a batman fan, that one became the winner and thus our dog is named Ace.
So of course, we had to have a photo shoot with my son wearing his Batman costume so we could introduce Ace to everyone on social media. We even found a dog toy with the logo on it. Such cute photos.
Why My Writing Time is Going to the Dog
We have had middle of the night wake-ups, and other puppy antics too. Like chewing. We can’t really leave him alone too much right now. Which makes it difficult to dive into my manuscript.
We are now in puppy training class, which also teaches us humans on how to behave with the dog. As you can see, we have our hands full. It won’t last forever, but this is what we’ve been doing this summer. I hope to show him periodically in my Author social media. So follow along on my instagram at denisem.colby I’ll leave you with this last pic so you can say awww.
Denise Colby loves to write about her word of the year. Each word builds a new layer in her writing journey (and her life). In 2022, her word was Work. This year, her word is change.
2 1 Read moreHow To ReStart Writing After A Prolonged Break
July 12, 2023 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Denise M. Colby, writerslife, writing processHow do you restart writing after taking a prolonged break? Do you jump in to a daily quota right away or start slowly one time a week working on your manuscript? Do you spend time reading what you wrote, first? Or, do you start writing a new scene to work with something fresh? Do you start a completely new project, or go back to the one you were working on before?
I don’t think there is a wrong way to restart writing, but there may be ideas we can use to help us get back into strong habits right away. I’d love to hear what you’ve done. Share them in the comments below.
As I am writing this blog post, I’m facing this very thing, restarting writing. I took a few months off to enjoy my sons’ graduations (college in May, hs in June) which I wrote about in last month’s blog post, and now I’m ready to write and edit again. As I started working on a few scenes over the weekend, the time flies. And I need to it to be quiet around me, which is hard to do with everyone home. All of these thoughts made me realize I need a game plan. And I couldn’t remember what I did before.
One thing I’m truly thankful for is my critique group. With a possibility of a weekly submission, I have a built-in deadline to help me complete a task. This is a huge motivator to restart writing.
Next I need to figure out when everyone will not be home, or I need to go somewhere to write. I love my large monitor, but maybe getting out the house will be exactly the best approach.
Denise is writing a western historical series set in 1869 California. She’s in the middle of editing the first book in the series, a full-length novel as well as a fun rom-com novella, with a few side characters.
0 0 Read moreA Season of Change
June 12, 2023 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise ColbyI chose the word Change this year because I knew I would have a large season of change in my life. Well, here I am, right in the thick of it and I couldn’t be more excited.
See, my youngest is graduating high school this week. And my middle son graduated college a few weeks ago. We’ve been busy with lots of lasts. Choir and theater performances, award shows, academic awards, you name it, we’ve been at it. It’s been chaos, but it’s been all worth it.
The chaos of getting everything ready and organizing schedules. Trying to get from one place to another and everyone fed on the way. The crazy after the event to go home and prep for what comes the next day. Hurrying from one event to another, getting in line early to get good seats, then finally settling in those seats ready to cheer on your child and their friends. It’s only then, when the show starts and you see it all come together. And all the chaos has changed into something great!
Many people think of the word change, negatively. But I found one definition stating change is to replace something with something else, especially something of the same thing that is newer or better.
Sometimes our writing needs to go from chaos to great
There’s a lot of chaos in the sentences we write. We have more than one way we can portray a character or communicate a scene. And as we try different angles, chaos reigns. But if we stay with it, if we push through the chaos, we see great change. And that’s what we ultimately are striving for.
Embracing this season of change and hopefully the next
I’ve been all in for this season. Embracing every event and enjoying every minute. I’ve taken a break from writing, so that I could be available for my family. It’s shown me a fresh perspective and I’m living my word this year, which is exactly what I wanted.
I’m looking forward to the next few months though, when I should have a bit more time to look at the chaos in my writing again and focus my energies on changing it into something great.
Denise Colby loves to write about her word of the year. Each word builds a new layer in her writing journey (and her life). In 2022, her word was Work. This year, her word is change.
The Brand Challenge; Adding Book Pages To Your Website
May 12, 2023 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Denise M. Colby, Marketing for Authors, The Brand Challenge, website marketingI talked about a brand challenge a few months back to encourage you to try something new on your website to help you build content and SEO to support your brand. In this post I’m going to dive deeper with my suggestion to add book pages to your website.
First, were you able to do anything on the list from the first brand challenge? I’d love to hear about it. Let me know in the comments below.
Whether you did or did not, let’s try again!
It doesn’t have to be a lot of something, just one thing. Sort of like taking a small bite of the elephant. You don’t need to eat the entire elephant at one time. Many successful websites were not built in one month. They started somewhere first. Then changed or added pages or content later.
Last post, I gave generalized ideas, including adding book pages on your website. For this post, I’m going to expand on this idea.
What type of book pages do you have on your website?
Similar to a blog post, having a page that is focused on one main idea, allows you to use it as a link in other content. This isn’t usually something we think about when building our website pages. Deep linking is adding links that direct the reader to a specific page, not just the front page of your website. The faster they click to the content they want, the happier they will be.
Ideas for pages on your website include a series book page and individual book pages on each book you publish. You can add where to buy for that specific book on the page, but there’s so much other content that can be connected to these pages.
Where to deep-link your book and series pages for brand building
Create a social media post or a blog post on any of the content below and include a direct link to the book or series page it represents.
- Make your characters come alive by talking about them outside of the story.
- Blog post or social media posts about the animals in your book (I have a rooster named Bert)
- Blog post or social media posts for your characters occupation
- Blog post or social media posts for the area or location in your stories (the one-room schoolhouse that was the inspiration to my story)
You can also add some of this content onto the book page itself to give additional context for your readers who choose to want to know more. It’s a way to connect with your readers or potential readers besides just the book.
Another option is to share research gathered for your stories. This could include research you weren’t able to add to your book but you’d like to share. Such when I learned about the first school-teacher who was trained from the school my heroine came from. So I wrote a blog post titled Harriet Bishop, First Public School Teacher in 1847
Frequent small steps add up over time
I know branding and dealing with your website can be challenging, I hope some of these ideas spark something for you to work with. Remember, your content doesn’t have to be perfect. It can even be something you decide to change later on.
I encourage you to do one thing on this list above to help build your brand. It may not seem much. It may seem overwhelming, or underwhelming. But if you do one thing this month, and then another thing next month. Pretty soon, you’ll have many months of blog posts and content that you didn’t have before.
Sometimes we feel this urgency to hurry up that adds extra stress we don’t need as we are busy writing our next book. I’m hoping these ideas help propel you forward in your Author career.
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