I’m Laurel Volk. I’m unpublished. Mostly not due to a lack of trying, though my screw-off skills are prodigious.
Here’s the thing: the online lit world is over-spilling with expert advice, but I’ve had my fill of expert advice. What I’m jonesing for is conversation from people like me: mostly competent in craft, maybe sending out stories here and there with the hopes of being published, attending conventions—but as one of the masses, not as one of the few who get to sit on panels. I’m constantly listening for voices like mine: the almost there.
And so, for now, I must be the blogger I want to read. I want to document my pursuit of publication along with the coups and pratfalls that come from learning and re-learning the writing craft. It’s time for me to move away from navel-gazing, my belly button is a wonderland sort of thing. This is me taking ownership of my evolution, and maybe providing commiseration space for others almost there too.
Expect lots of conversations deconstructing craft advice, follow-ups lamenting or exalting the having put that deconstructed advice into practice, travelogues detailing my toddling about in the strange country of publishing, the occasional character study of coffee shop patrons, lit meta begat from reading while drinking sangria, and every now and again, just to prove I engage in activities other than diagramming sentences and blundering the grammar on lay/lie, I’ll sometimes throw on my slash goggles and review superhero movies.