Routinely Gather Information, Part 2

Last week, I started to tell you all the ways I try to gather information that will be helpful to my career as a writer. But the list was so long, I had to break it into two blogs. Last week I mentioned online classes and lecture packets, Twitter, blogs, online articles for writers, and webinars.

There are an abundance of online ways to keep up with the latest information. But remember that authors still speak at bookstores. (Easy to forget sometimes when we spend so much time alone on the Internet!) This can be a great way to network and ask questions, including how-to questions. Also check out your favorite authors when they go on blog tours. They will often – depending on the audience at the blog – discuss how they researched and wrote their book. More helpful information for you. Many authors also have “For Writers” sections on their web sites with articles and links to other useful information.

You may be thinking you can’t afford to go to a writer’s conference – the airfare, the hotel, the hundreds of dollars in tuition. But search online and watch your newspaper’s calendar section for other writer or reader events. I attended the Australian Romance Readers Award dinner last Saturday night. Not only did I meet some romance readers who were happy to tell me what they loved to read, but I met some more writers. We exchanged email addresses so that we can share information later.

I also went to the Sydney Writer’s Festival last week. Most of the events are talks with authors and are free to the public. I went to the talks on writing crime in fiction and YA writing, There were also talks from first novelists, talks on verbal storytelling and more. Check your newspaper, community web site, or library to find out about reader and writer events in your area. If there isn’t anything interesting coming up, consider volunteering to be a speaker somewhere or to organize a community event. These are great ways to network!

As part of the festival, the State Library of New South Wales conducted tours for writers and researchers. A friend and I paid $20 each to get the grand tour. We were told all the different kinds of things they had there for research and what other famous writers had used library materials for in their books. (Ironically, all this information is available to anyone for free, but we paid $20 to find that out.) Find out if your library does tours. Better yet, find out if there are libraries in your area you had no idea were there! (I’d never heard of the State Library of NSW, but I am definitely going back. The inside looks like the library the Beast opened up to Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast! It’s dreamy!)

Another way to gather information is from your friends, critique partners, and other writers who know you. Based on their knowledge of you, your writing and your interests, they can help you decide if you’re on the right track in your writing. My agent asked me several years ago if I’d considered writing YA because she thought my voice worked for it. I haven’t really tried it until this month, but I’m finding it an interesting experiment. Maybe I’ll discover I have a talent for it. I was telling my friend Rachel about this scary car chase through the woods that happened to me as a teenager and that I was thinking of writing it up as part of the first scene of this book. She was so taken in by the story (though we were driving down city streets in the light of day) that she said her heart was racing as she waited to hear what happened next. Maybe I’ll find I can tell a suspenseful story as well.

On the other hand, learn to tell when you’re not getting good information. If you show your work to people (writers or otherwise) and they tell you it’s great, they loved it, can’t think of anything to change, you may decide this particular person or group is not really helping you write better. Know when you’re surrounding yourself with “yes” people who aren’t helping, versus when you’re trying to get constructive criticism from people who enjoy reading in your genre. While many people who don’t read in your genre can be good or great critique partners, people who love and read similar books may be most helpful to you.

Those are just about all the ways I can think of that I use to routinely gather information. Sometimes they can help me fight procrastination by taking some action, however small, in my writing. Sometimes I spend too much time doing something (can you say “research”?) and not writing a single word – which is exactly the kind of procrastination I’m trying to fight this month.

What do you have to keep yourself from doing too much of? What works for you? What seems to be a procrastinating habit for others but you find it works well for you?