Until today, I had only mentioned it in a couple of places, but now that I’ve more or less finished building it, I’ve realized that I haven’t even written a word about it here on the Y Logs! Time to change that, I say.

(To those who’ve already seen a similar announcement in the past days: you can stop reading here, there’s nothing new under the sun for you.
Also: the website is mostly in French. Sorry about that. I’m focusing it on my career in my native country, that’s why… but you can still have a look if you wish, I don’t mind participation in English, and I will of course answer in English as well.)

More than one year ago, I had already mentioned my little yzabel.net domain name, and had vaguely used it for a purpose I’ve given up on since then. However, recently, I’ve decided to really do something with it this time, and not a pitiful blog. Therefore, I took on the opportunity to test a certain CMS and design a new site, a site that’ll be focused on my career as an author (amateur as well as upcoming one, because my dreams are strong and my pen very industrious).

Contrary to my writing LJ, I’m not going to note down there a detailed account of how well my writing is going (or not). I want it to be a little more… let’s say ‘open’. On the other hand, I’m seriously toying with the idea of publishing Unsung Heroes on it, since I can’t do much with that story in France anyway. And Unsung Heroes WILL remain in English.

If you’ve visited Yzabel.net one year ago and found it completely lame (which I easily understand), or even if you had never seen it, this is the kind of new things you’ll find on it. And I do hope that one day, that page will become “the website of famous author Yzabel”. /smile/

Y Tags: novel | stories | writing | yzabel

Ah, the good old problem we all have to face sooner or later—finding time to write. Because unless it’s our job and we don’t need to have any other one, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

It did look easy when I was younger and only had to focus on my not-too-difficult high school homework. Now, after several years spent attending cramming classes, being in the workforce and going back to college while still retaining a job, I’ve seriously revised my opinion about that. And my guess is that for all of us who write with the aim of being published one day, it’s even harder to set ourselves to ‘work’—the pleasure is still here, yet our lives are already full enough as it is.

I’ve already expressed in the past how I agree that we have to set aside time to write, else we just won’t write at all. I still agree with this, however hard the prospect is: I know it’s the only way. That settles it. We may be tired after work, busy with school, busy with families, but in the end, it all comes down to the fact that nobody will write for us, and that if we don’t take that extra step, odds are we’ll simply never be published, and will remain amateurs until the end. I used to huff about that, now I don’t do it anymore. One has to accept the facts the way they are, and work around the problem. I can’t just go on dreaming about being a famous author later in my life if I can’t even find the time to finish at least a short story and submit it, can I?

A little question has been wandering in my mind these last days, and I’ve decided to write it down here.

Those of you who are writers, are trying to be published, or are simply readers, do you think that the best course of action is to submit short stories in an attempt to be published in magazines, fanzines and anthologies, instead of working on a novel? Or, on the contrary, is publishing a novel or two first the right solution, before dispatching short stories around?

On the one hand, one could present the argument that it is best to be known through short stories before submitting a novel, because this sort of legitimates the author—much like a company would ask for previous experience before hiring you.

On the other hand, the format of the short story isn’t as evident as it appears to laymen’s eyes, and since selling such texts isn’t the easiest thing, what are the real chances given to unknown people in that area? Is working on short stories a waste of time? Should they focus on a novel instead?

I’m wondering about that, since myself am not the best judge in that regard. I’d rather leer toward the first solution, given my professional orientation, in which lots of previous jobs = valuable experience, not instability. But am I not too inexperienced in terms of writing to really have an opinion on that?

Is this only a question worth being asked, or am I nitpicking?

Y Tags: novel | short story | writing

First and foremost, I hope that everyone here had nice holidays, and that 2007 will be a good year.

As for the famous resolutions, I’m not taking any. Resolutions are only made to be broken anyway. If I need to wait for January 1st to be here to take a decision, then said decision wasn’t really worth it to start with.

This said, I all the same decided to aim a little higher regarding The Wall of Silence. Not that I have delusions of grandeur, but considering that I’m not past the 70,000 words mark and am barely finishing part 2 out of 4, I think I can safely deem this goal realistic. And if I have to do cuts durning the editing process, well, I’ll wory about that later.

In any case, I’m glad: the story is going quite nicely, I have to say.

PS - I’m clueless. I’ve only inserted the new word count in the sidebar on this blog, and now the template is working as intended again. Let’s say it’s 2007 showing me a good omen.

Y Tags: novel | wall of silence | writing

A quick update to announce two things:

• I’ve had this in mind for some time already, and I’ve finally taken a decision: I will progressively ‘get rid’ of my WordPress blog about writing. I will probably use it again later on for other purposes, and I’m not deleting the articles currently on it, but I won’t update it anymore. Since October this year, I’ve been posting my NaNoWriMo and other writings progression on a LiveJournal, and as much as this can seem ‘unprofessional’, the fact is that 1) I’m not published yet anyway, 2) what’s the point of detailing my antics as an aspiring author if nobody ever sees more than a few paragraphs of what I’m writing, 3) I don’t want to post full excerpts publicly, not yet.

  I’m not a huge fan of LJ when it comes to such a blog, but at least, there, I have full control on what accounts can and can’t access my posts. Sorry for those who don’t have a LJ account. A good half of the entries will be public, probably—just not the ones containing excerpts, or going into my plots in detail).



• I know the layout here on the Y Logs is slightly off. I’m not sure when this problem has appeared, given how little time I’ve had to look into the matter. Before doing anything, though, I first need to update my version of WP and perform a database save—and the latter being a problem at the moment, I may not be able to do that in the next day or so.

Voilà, that’s all for the moment

Y Tags: blog | layout | livejournal | template | writing