Loops

The queen of procrastination can waste a whole day perusing writer loops. I'm sure I'm not the only one (gasp! I hope I'm not the only one). And to prove a point, I did just that today. (When I should have been working on chapter 19...grumble, grumble)

Now, I'm on several loops - so many that I can't even keep them all straight. I look at My Yahoo Groups link and my eyes cross. Among the many are my local RWA loop, the KOD loop, RWC, RWAPro loops (I think there are four), RWA loops (again, at least four), the RWAProNationals loop, AskAnAuthor (um, two maybe?), The Knight Agency loop, Romance Contests (had enough yet?)... I could go on and on (don't worry, I won't.)

And even though I'm on all these loops, how many am I really active in? One. Just my chapter loop, to be honest. I peruse the rest daily (along with several blogs I won't even mention here), but I'm very hesitant to jump right in and start offering advice. I was pretty active in the RWC loop way back when, but sort of dropped off as I was writing more and more. And now, I'm just not sure I have all that much to add to the conversations. It's not like I'm agented. It's not like I'm published. I haven't won ten-thousand contests, and I'm not the type of person to toot my own horn and brag about all my requests. And someone else will always offer the same comment I would have made, so what's the big deal?

The big deal is I miss the camaraderie. Especially from other writers. I posted a few times on the RWAProNational loop, but just didn't feel comfortable enough to get into it. And then I missed out on meeting some great women at Nationals who were all there. My own fault.

But since coming back from Nationals, I think I'm a bit more hesitant to jump in to all these other loops for one very big reason...people actually read all these posts!! I met lots of people whose names I recognize from these loops - some pubbed, some not, but it really made me sit up and think before I start shooting off my mouth and posting on loops that are basically, public domain.

So what's my point? Well, yesterday I read a post on a loop by an epubbed writer which grated on my nerves. It was an "I'm great because of this..." type post that had nothing to do with the question that was being asked. And it got me thinking. This particular writer is also active on a lot of the other loops I peruse, and it just reinforced to me how your image is so easily spread from place to place. How you put forth that image is what counts. And being nice and not know-it-all-ish on the loops is soooo important. This particular thread totally reinforced that to me.

Not sure if I'll jump back in on some of the loops or not. My mouth tends to get me in trouble when I get too involved in certain things, so for now, I'll probably keep my lips tightly shut and go on reading.

And procrastinating when I should be working on chapter 19...