Nowadays, everyone says a writer needs a newsletter. I’m beginning to lose count of the number of things I’m supposed to produce that isn’t my stories. But what about all those goodies that don’t make it into the stories?
- That chapter I deleted. The one that’s now just a couple of sentences buried in a conversation. Well, more like, how that works, how you decide to kill off 3000 words in exchange for 50, for the sake of the story.
- The interview between me and my MC, you know, the one that went over so well at that open mic.
- My research on the folk sayings that spark each of the chapters in Wind and Smoke. The ones that prove that Ireland and South Korea are pretty much the same.
- The things I want to tell agents. Not mean things. Just advice. Would you sign with an agency if their website takes 20 seconds to load a page?
- I could blurt out some of the things I wanted to say at book club, because other people sure have a lot to say. Or is it not OK to reveal that writers are readers, too?
Dangit.
I have all that stuff.
So now I have a new work-in-progress.
I won’t be sending a newsletter more often than monthly, because that’s what I like in a newsletter. Maybe the occasional special edition, like when I sign with an agent or get that next book deal.
Target date for first issue: Let’s make it Valentine’s Day.
(Public Domain, from Newberry Library via Wikimedia Commons)