Anne N. Mouse: Blog

Earlier today, I read a question by a commentor on another site asking why authors stop writing. Some of the responses were, 'we're being criticized' (to which I thought 'grow a pair, or rhino skin...' whichever suits you!) but another was that they don't get feedback.
Now I won't complain about getting feedback as when I'm posting regularly, I get feedback and plenty of it. Yet at the same time it seems that the number of comments I get versus the number of items posted is rather thin, unless I specifically beg for feedback.
So I'll ask the other authors, do you experience a dearth of feedback if you fail to post on a regular schedule?
To me it appears that I get comments (on some items) the first day they appear, then the comments stop... The downloads slow down a bit, but I have items that regularly receive in the neighborhood of 10-15 hits per week. Since they are short, I can't tell if anyone is reading them unless I (which I do) occasionally get the note that says 'Wow I liked this!' or the equivalent.
Anyway, I'm somewhat interested in the experience of other authors in this regard.
And I gives a rip if someone dislikes my work, or even writes me complaining notes. In fact, so long as they deal with the quality of my writing rather than the subject matter I want that sort of feedback too. I want to improve my ability at this craft. Someday, I'd like to produce something that I think would be good enough to warrant going to Amazon with it. Right now my endings are not satisfactory to me, let alone my audience so far as I can tell.
TYVM
TJ

I can't seem to help myself... I take a couple of lazy days off from writing and come back to what I've posted and look at the file and decide to do some tweaking. So A Wait Problem is updated today, I don't know that I got everything that I should have, and I don't know that what I did to it has improved it. Then again, I am not trusting my judgement with regard to my own writing. After all your writing is somewhat like your children, that is that you tend to be apt to overlook flaws in either one due to wishing to launch them both into the future...
Anyway, I know it hasn't been a favorite of anyone's but I thought some might wish to know that I had done some minor changes and posted them.

Please drop me a line with a good e-mail address. I would love to get back to proofreading your work!
Thanks
Anne

When I was 20 and went to get jobs it was, 'you're too young', or 'you don't have any experience'. So I joined the army... Soon I wasn't in the army, nor in my 20's any more, but then it was, 'you don't have the right experience', or 'gee we'd like someone with even more experience', now I'm older yet, and still I get, 'gee you don't have the right experience,' or 'we'd like someone with yet more experience in that area', or finally I'm beginning to get, 'well you're just too old...'
Yet I never seemed to get the right experience, and when I was young no one would hire me. Now I admit, for reasons I will not say, I wouldn't hire myself... but then again, yes I would for a lot of jobs if I could make them pay, I'd do them right now, but no one wants to hire as a 'contractor', 'we have someone doing that already...' so... here I sit getting older, no wiser, and wondering, how I missed out on getting experience that would see me hired....

If you are an author, who are your writing heroes? Mine, in no particular order are Louis L'Amour, Robert A Heinlein, Issac Asimov, Mercedes Lackey. Are there others? Sure Stephen King gets a more than honorable mention. There is a book, no more than about 100 pages that Stephen King wrote on the art of writing that I consider to be one of the better instructional books I've ever read on the subject. I'm not sure of the title any more as it has escaped my possession again. I've picked up two copies of it used...
Anyway, what have all of these people in common (I'm sure any writer who has made a living at the craft would say the same...) They all said: Write every day! Don't let your emotions get in the way. Don't let boredom get in the way! Don't read for pleasure, especially before you have completed your daily goal of writing. Set daily goals. Meet your daily goals.
Well some people say that failing to meet my goals after only a few days is not failure. And maybe it isn't failure entirely (after all I'm writing this [even if it isn't a story per se]) but it certainly isn't where I need to be, which is hammering out pieces and parts of a story.