The Brilliant Blog

Staying Alive While Writing a Book

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Registration is now open for ScienceWriters 2012, “a meeting for science writers, by science writers. Join us to experience professional development workshops, briefings on the latest scientific research, extensive networking opportunities, and field trips to explore the region’s unique setting” of Raleigh, North Carolina. Here’s the panel I’ll be speaking on:

Long-form Writing in the Age of Instant Media: Staying Alive While Writing a Book

Writing a book is a long, contemplative process that requires a lot of quiet thought, intense and extensive reporting, and immersion in the writing process. Building on last year’s workshop on how writers manage their time (“I tweet, I blog, but do I sleep?”), we want to look at the how writers can spend most of their time working on their books, while also taking care of all the other things most of them have to do: Writing magazine pieces to keep food on the table after the initial chunk of the book advance has been spent; blogging to remind the public that you’re alive, even if you’re spending most of your time in oxygen-scarce archives; and maintaining a presence on Facebook and Twitter to cultivate readers for the book. Two of the questions we will try to answer are: How do you put food on the table while writing a book? And how do you keep yourself visible at the same time? Edward Vilga, who coaches creative artists, will offer tips and comment on the other panelists’ approaches to their work.

It’s going to be great. Come if you can! Read more here.