Door Closes, Window Opens

I've decided to move to a new blog this year.  It is up and running: Wordsteading.blogspot.com.

The Daring Novelist has been a fun ride, but it has drifted so far from its original purpose -- to track progress in a daily writing dare -- that the very name seems wrong.

For the past couple years I have been increasingly involved in what Dean Wesley Smith calls "life rolls": major stuff that happens in your life that you have to drop everything to respond to.  It is now clear that much of this is not temporary, and so let's just say it will be a while before I can do anything resembling a novel dare.

At the same time, I have been fascinated for some time now with the rising tide of amateur writers -- that is, the culture hobbyists, artistes and part-timers who can now choose their own level of commitment and still publish.  Writers who integrate their writing into a larger lifestyle, and live and write by their own rules.

Last year I coined a phrase for this: Wordsteading (here's the original wordsteading post). In my mind it's realated to the self-sufficiency and homesteading movements, (though it doesn't need to involve living off the grid and raising your own milk goats).

The writing parts of the blog won't be all that different, but the focus will be more on lifestyle (definitely lots of posts about self-sufficiency) and the business of writing will be more aimed at the amateur.

(Note: I'll probably update some posts from here to put over there. Also, this blog will remain "open" for if I ever decide to do a novel dare again.  If that happens, I'll post updates here, but nothing else.)

See you on the old Wordstead.