Today is the day. While you are reading this, I am off at the yearly Armadillocon writer's workshop. Hopefully I am learning a lot of stuff, and really improving. Hopefully I'm not twiddling my thumbs and wishing I had saved my money. I'll let you know in a few days, one way or the other.
The road to the con was a bit twisty for me. I've been to a bunch of gaming conventions, back when I was a sproutling. This is the first writing (or professional, period) convention I've gone to, though. I'm really hoping to meet some new people and expand my circle of writing friends. So, if you go to the con, and you see me, do me a favor and introduce yourself.
I wanted to bring a voice recorder, and make some recordings of the panels I attended, maybe podcast them. My podcasting career has got off to a rocky start however, and you can check out my post on the voice recorder I bought and returned to see how that went. I do still have the ability to make recordings with my mp3 player, so maybe I'll try that.
I don't have much of a plan of attack. I'm not sure what the panels actually are, and I don't have any friends going, so I guess I'm just gonna wing it. No travel involved, I don't live far from downtown, and the con. This is one of the big reasons I am able to attend, actually. If there were travel costs involved, I wouldn't be be to go.
Anyway, I'll post some updates on the con and what's happening/happened there over the next few days, if I can. I may cut myself some slack and let the daily posting challenge slide, just for this weekend. We'll see. And see you there.
Welcome to the Journey is Silver Bowen's blog on writing, self-epubbing, growth, and gadgets. All as experienced by a growing writer. Learn with me.
Showing posts with label Armadillocon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Armadillocon. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Mindspace - Why I Guard Mine Jealously
I am extremely careful with who an what I allow to influence my mindspace. For those of you that have no idea what that even means, let me offer some definitions.
Mindspace is the interior monologue and self-analytic function of my brain. It is the part of my persona that decides what I should be doing, how , and why. It is my internal orderly, my judge, jury and executor (no, not executioner, that would be morbid.)
When I allow other people to critique my work, whether writing or other arts, even reading reviews, I allow them to influence my mindspace. Bad critiques have the ability to throw my head out of whack, to put it bluntly.
This, in itself, isn't that huge of a problem. I have a strong ego, my equilibrium will right itself eventually. The problem is the hour, or day, or days, I spend obsessing over whatever it was. I lose time. Time better spent working on new ideas, or writing new words, or learning about epubbing. Spent on someone else's ideas instead.
For instance, I've gotten critiques that were fairly harshly worded. Not necessarily wrong, just not gentle enough for my fragile self. which lead to a day of turning the words over in my mind. Instead of a day working on my next story. The solution is to not expose myself to critiquing like that. I'm very, very picky about first readers now.
Which brings up the topic of Armadillocon. I'm attending this year, my first writing convention. I've done gaming cons before, back in the day, but never a learning focused one like this. I'm hoping to get a lot out of the weekend, as well as link up with some other Austin writers, expand my circle and all. I am leery about the actual writing workshop part, but hopefully it will be helpful and not, well, a poor guest in my mindspace.
More on Armadillocon tomorrow.
Mindspace is the interior monologue and self-analytic function of my brain. It is the part of my persona that decides what I should be doing, how , and why. It is my internal orderly, my judge, jury and executor (no, not executioner, that would be morbid.)
When I allow other people to critique my work, whether writing or other arts, even reading reviews, I allow them to influence my mindspace. Bad critiques have the ability to throw my head out of whack, to put it bluntly.
This, in itself, isn't that huge of a problem. I have a strong ego, my equilibrium will right itself eventually. The problem is the hour, or day, or days, I spend obsessing over whatever it was. I lose time. Time better spent working on new ideas, or writing new words, or learning about epubbing. Spent on someone else's ideas instead.
For instance, I've gotten critiques that were fairly harshly worded. Not necessarily wrong, just not gentle enough for my fragile self. which lead to a day of turning the words over in my mind. Instead of a day working on my next story. The solution is to not expose myself to critiquing like that. I'm very, very picky about first readers now.
Which brings up the topic of Armadillocon. I'm attending this year, my first writing convention. I've done gaming cons before, back in the day, but never a learning focused one like this. I'm hoping to get a lot out of the weekend, as well as link up with some other Austin writers, expand my circle and all. I am leery about the actual writing workshop part, but hopefully it will be helpful and not, well, a poor guest in my mindspace.
More on Armadillocon tomorrow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)