So it goes...

The life of a writer is full of ups and downs. The excitement of an acceptance for publication can be quickly offset the next day by the struggle of trying to get 200 words out of your head and onto the page. Thing is, we put this burden on ourselves because the other option, not writing, only seems worse. The view from my writing chair has been unquestionably positive lately. Lots of recent successes, fun promotional opportunities and even a new submission here and there. All of those things are good. At the same time, I spend too much time beating myself up about what I'm not doing - not putting out significant amounts of new material, not getting to my Portland Avenue book like I should, and not promoting heavily enough. I blame it all on this little guy in my head that likes to trip me up. The old inner critic. So, my goal is to focus on the positive, the successes of late and what may be upcoming. If I only get 300 words done a week, but have 2 submissions and a good edi...

Author Jim Landwehr This is the continuation of my blog hop set up by Author Mindy Mymudes and her friend  Author Lynda Cox  . In the hop, each Author is to answer four questions and pass the blog on to three or four author friends. These friends then answer the same four questions a week later, thereby sending the blog on an infinite loop, or so it goes . Below are my answers the interview questions. What am I working on?   Actually, a number of things. From a marketing standpoint, I am working on getting the word out about my forthcoming book, Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir ,  due to be released by eLectio Publishing on June 17 th , 2014. Marketing and publicity is a lot of work, but I consider myself lucky to be finally doing the legwork of book promotion. It is a good problem to have! My major writing focus at the moment is getting much of my poetry critiqued, cleaned up and edited. I intend to launch a collection of poetry on the heels of D...

It occurred to me that for all the mention of my writing and my book, I've never disclosed much about what Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir  is about, or how it came to be. I know I've addressed the process and lamented about my struggles with it, but I've never really prepared an elevator talk outlining what the book is about. Part of me just assumed that from the title, people could figure it out for themselves. Another part of me thought that I should keep it secret, or to myself, so that the book would be somehow more engaging or self-revealing to people when they read it. Neither of these are good assumptions to make from a marketing standpoint. People don't get interested by "mystique". So, I'll try and talk a little about the book without giving it all away. The book actually was never intended to be a book at all, I'll start with that. In 2005, I enrolled in a class called Writing from Your Life. It was a class offered through the City...

In the writing world, much of our time is spent waiting. Waiting on inspiration, waiting on clarity, waiting on edits, waiting on submission responses. When I took my first adult education writing course called Writing from your life , I was thrilled to be writing and getting feedback. So, what did I do right after that? Waited almost two years to take my second class - the AllWriters' Wednesday Night Workshop . Sometimes waiting is put on us, other times we put it on ourselves. These past couple of months I was waiting to find out if my latest article submission on muskie fishing was accepted to MidWest Outdoors Magazine . They don't really reply if you are accepted or not, a check just shows up in your mailbox one day. When my article wasn't in the December issue, I assumed if I waited another month, it would be in January issue. Of course, it wasn't, so now I wait again to see if it will be placed in February or maybe even later in the year, where it fits the open ...