Visiting Susan Whitfield today
My next stop on the tour is on Susan Whitfield’s blog – hop on over and have a read.
Tomorrow I’ll have a post up here in the realm and then on the 18th, I’m over on Jemi’s blog looking at making fantasy unique.
Thanks all for the continued support on the tour.
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Two Visits Done
The blog tour started well with my visit to Eric’s blog. I want to thank Eric once again for his brilliant post and for kicking off the tour. I then dropped in to Geoffrey’s blog for day two. Thanks so much Geoffrey for your excellent post here in the realm.
But there are many days to come in September.
Tomorrow I am visiting Lua Fowles blog where I discuss excuses for not writing, while Lua brings her own brand of wisdom here to the realm.
After that there is a bit of a break before I visit Sonya Clark on the 7th for an interview.
Thanks to everyone who has already started following the tour and I hope to see you on my ‘travels’.
Between now and the 7th, I have received an award that I am going to share.
Before I’m done though, here are the 5 things I’ve learned from planning this blog tour:
1. There are many, many helpful people out there, so when you ask if anyone would mind hosting you, be prepared for an inundation of offers.
2. It helps if you do a blog swap rather than just a visit and that way you don’t have to worry about writing two posts on a given day and it lets the people hosting you have a chance to visit another blog.
3. Make sure you have a bucket load of free time because you will spend twenty times longer writing the posts for the tour than any of your other blogs.
4. The time difference between Australia and America becomes really noticeable when trying to coordinate with people on the other side of the world.
5. Despite the work, this has been really fun and I can’t wait to plan another one next year.
Thanks all and see you around.
Following the leader:
This is mostly in response to Carol Kilgore’s post earlier in the week on the blinking cursor. Afterward I was having trouble typing without staring at the cursor on the screen and that was seriously derailing my ability to type. It really does just sit and blink at you when your fingers hesitate on the keys. It is almost as if it is angry and impatient, dying to get moving and hating you because you need to stop and think.
I probably shouldn’t personify computer blips but there we have it.
As I mentioned in the comments, I don’t sit in front of my screen when I’m thinking. I either move or turn the screen off. The glare and the blinking and just the hum of the computer is all very impersonal and it all feels very demanding. As if you have to get things done right now and that kind of pressure is never good for my creative process. I move away and find more pleasant surrounds, or at least different surrounds.
That said, I like the cursor when I’m on a roll. I see it gliding effortlessly across the screen, a straight and powerful line driving before the flock of words that follow in its wake – and there is probably a mangled metaphor if ever there was one. I see it as a guide and as encouragement. I see the words play out behind it and feel that something is being accomplished. When the story is flowing, the cursor can be your very best of friends and one of your greatest supporters.
Is it that the cursor is in fact two faced or is it that when things go well we see the positive in things but when they go poorly…
Maybe its just the fact that it blinks. Blinking lights always seem impatient and angry. Or alarmed. Concerned. None of these things are what you emotionally want when trying to write so why won’t the cursor stop blinking.
As I hesitated before writing this line I watched the cursor sit and blink at me. Maybe it is just reminding us it is there and trying to keep us from falling asleep at the screen.
Cassandra Jade in the Realm 