Authors Pages
Every writer has been there – fresh out of ideas, sinking low in your office chair, staring at a screen that is as just about as blank as your brain. And it’s been that way for an hour. Your fingers are twitching. You are ready to write, but waiting for inspiration that’s giving the cold shoulder to the green light. You are hoping for a thread to start your daily author’s pages, anything that can get you started and keep you going.
Perhaps you have writer’s block, or maybe you’re just bored. Either way, it’s time to turn away from your empty screen and toward something that’s going to work.
Every writer should have both an idea file and a folder of finished work. An author’s pages are assembled over time and we tend to keep plenty of files tucked in the corners of our hard drive. Hit the idea file first. If nothing inside whispers to your muse, that’s okay. It’s time to open the finished work folder and go fishing for something fantastic.
Browse through your Author’s pages. Chances are excellent you will discover a title that causes you to smile, perhaps pulling you toward a memory or two. Who was the audience you originally wrote it for? Would they like to see it again? Do you have a new home for a repurposed article? Could the writing be retouched, rewritten, repurposed, or in any way reenergized? You are most certainly a different person now than you were when you first wrote the piece as we each alter by degrees each day.
Take who you were, blend it with who you are, and blaze through a quick rewrite that could never exist before that moment.
Your personal cache of author’s pages are a treasure chest of thought and previously articulated ideas. You can always add to an old thread. Whether the piece of writing will be presented to the same audience who read it before or a different audience entirely, fresh perspective will render it worthy of a repeat.
How many times have you revisited a favorite novel, only to adore it every bit as much as you did the first time. Can you imagine if the author had returned to those pages, tweaking them with their newfound experience?
I am not suggesting we tamper with the classics, but online writing is largely disposable. Writers publish something one day only to see it fade the next, and all but disappear within a week. Revisiting something old can be a wonderful thing, not only for the readers, but for you as the original author as well.
Perhaps you have something written somewhere in your author’s pages that you have never shared before. Take that piece of personal writing and twist the voice into something different. Writing doesn’t have to be about the constant search for new ideas and new ways of saying things. Writing is an art, and like the best art it imitates life.
Sometimes the best things in life are found by taking the time to reflect, remember, and revisit days gone by.
Ghostwriter Dad
Author’s Pages
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Nice one, Sean. I sometimes wish there was a comments fairy too, harvesting all the seeds we’ve scattered without realising it so they can blossom onto something on our own blogs.
One mistake I’ve been making over the months is putting links in posts to old column articles that I’ve hosted in my archives, articles I know my current readers won’t have read. I have three years worth of pieces there to be tapped into, and as you say, readers recycle, people come and go. I’ve had a much better response when I simply post the articles themselves saying it’s an old piece.
Please let me know if you’d like me to stop commenting here. I know hundreds of folk probably read this blog in readers and you have Twitter going on, but I can never understand why I’m often the first to arrive and fear I may be missing something. I love your pieces here, as much as any you’ve done on Writer Dad or the Inkwell. It’s a different voice, but it’s still yours, and as much a part of your tapestry as any of the other threads. I feel it growing stronger, too.
Hi Janice,
I wish I had a comments fairy, but she wouldn’t need to blossom my comments, she would only need to make them for me. I don’t remember the last time I had the minutes to do anything with a comment besides answer it. : > )
I’ve noticed the same thing. Almost no one follows my links, but if I post something old and make it new again, it actually IS new for 95% of people reading. So unless I’m linking for SEO purposes, I would rather just publish the old work with a freshly laundered outfit.
For some reason GWD is a site that invites few comments. It’s okay. This site was born for SEO, not attention. Though you are right, the voice is getting stronger and my caring is increasing. I can’t wait until it achieves its aim of a top spot. Then I will be able to pay no mind to SEO whatsoever. It’s numbers are steadily growing, but mostly I just need Ghostwriter Dad to make the phone ring. Please comment whenever you feel moved. : > )
Have an awesome day, Janice!