{"id":36148,"date":"2020-06-18T06:30:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T18:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=36148"},"modified":"2020-06-04T15:57:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T03:57:07","slug":"writing-novels-posting-blogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2020\/06\/18\/writing-novels-posting-blogs\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside The Writing Life: Writing Novels, Posting Blogs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-34861 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-09-Pen_paper_2-112x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"112\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-09-Pen_paper_2-112x150.jpg 112w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-09-Pen_paper_2-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/2017-11-09-Pen_paper_2-768x1024.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 112px) 100vw, 112px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A question I occasionally get asked is whether blogging interferes with my writing.<\/p>\n<p>The answer, in the best Tolkien&#8217;s elf style, is both &#8220;no&#8221; and &#8220;potentially yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s &#8220;no&#8221; because for me they&#8217;re very different styles of writing and so I can be exhausted after working on the novel, but &#8220;switch brains&#8221; to doing a blog post, which seems to tap a different creative well.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-33165 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Thornspell_Handwritten-Notes-150x109.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"109\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Thornspell_Handwritten-Notes-150x109.jpg 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Thornspell_Handwritten-Notes.jpg 223w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As I believe I may have indicated previously, novels and the writing thereof are not unlike marathons, or &#8220;Ironman&#8221; events (because you do have to &#8220;switch codes&#8221; sometimes within the larger format). Blogging, on the other hand, is more of a quiet jog around the block in terms of intensity, during which you can easily chat with the neighbours and pause to enjoy a view or two.<\/p>\n<p>In short, they&#8217;re very different beasties and although there&#8217;s a connection between the two, they&#8217;re at different ends of a considerable spectrum.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33573\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33573\" class=\"wp-image-33573 size-thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1-150x90.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"90\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1-150x90.png 150w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1-300x180.png 300w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1-768x462.png 768w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1-1024x616.png 1024w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Blog-screen-shot-1.png 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-33573\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">On Anything, Really&#8230;<\/p><\/div>\n<p>However, I did channel my inner Tolkien elf and said &#8220;potentially, yes&#8221; as well. The nub of the matter lies in the &#8220;potentially&#8221; of course. For example, with a post series like <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2018\/10\/22\/having-fun-with-epic-fantasy-tropes-11-the-mentor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Having Fun With Epic Fantasy Tropes<\/a>, each of those posts can take a bit of time to put together. With a themed series of that type, the reason the installments appear a wee way apart is because I don&#8217;t want to rob from the book writing time to get the posts done on a regular and reliable schedule.<\/p>\n<p>Also, one of the reasons for cutting back from blogging everyday (with or without a spirit of joyful exhilaration), which is what I used to do for many years, was not because the posts were being written in my space for the novel writing , but to reduce cumulative commitments, as these can eat into both energy and time if not kept within bounds.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33978\" style=\"width: 246px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33978\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-33978\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/goneWriting_1-236x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"236\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/goneWriting_1-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/goneWriting_1-118x150.jpg 118w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/goneWriting_1.jpg 256w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 236px) 100vw, 236px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-33978\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gone Writing<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Overall, though, so long as I need to take rest and revitalization breaks away from the novel writing (which of course I do), there will always be time for a little blogging without conflict of interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A question I occasionally get asked is whether blogging interferes with my writing. The answer, in the best Tolkien&#8217;s elf style, is both &#8220;no&#8221; and &#8220;potentially yes.&#8221; It&#8217;s &#8220;no&#8221; because for me they&#8217;re very different styles of writing and so I can be exhausted after working on the novel, but &#8220;switch brains&#8221; to doing a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-writing","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36148"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38021,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36148\/revisions\/38021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}