Reaching Out About Writing

[Beta Metroid]

Between being a relatively new parent and writing full-time for work, for the past few years I've really lacked the energy to pursue more creative pursuits. But in recent months, I've been answering the call to write for fun more frequently. It's still rather haphazard, as I spend the bulk of my personal time, energy, and love with the family, and committing to any kind of strict schedule for a hobby just isn't in the cards right now.

It's generally taken the form of short fiction (about a page per work) that I write and read out for a local writers' group every month or so, and then musings on random topics that I'm interested in (usually video games and other fiction that I'm interested in, but also sometimes national/state/provincial parks I've visited). I generally just share the latter on a discord server with a few real-life friends. But, while I'm not doing it "for the views" and it's nothing I'd consider professional, I do think I'd like to see if I could interest a few more readers. After all, I think the accountability of actually reading out my work to my short fiction group gives me a degree of accountability that motivates me to actually finish and polish up different endeavors. Plus, I like discussing a lot of the topics I go on about, so if there are a few more readers, there's a bit more chance of that happening.

I guess I'm looking for advice on reaching an audience, though when I say that, it gives me images of self-promoting on social media, keeping up constant productivity, and a bunch of other things that I'm not really talking about. It's more that I'd just like people outside my real-life social circle to see my stuff every once in a while.

My instinct is the writing is a bit too wordy for forum posts, but I don't know. What do you think about 500-word short fiction, or 1000-1500 words on exploring Pictured Rocks, Canyonlands, or Biscayne? Or on the gaming front the OP abilities in Kirby Super Star, or how the same cute animals are used differently in Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion? Stuff that isn't necessarily a review or a Let's Play, but more digging into a specific part of a game?

The thing is, I was never super IN touch with the cool kids on the world wide web, and I've become less so since having children. Is blogging still a good approach to this kind of casual, hobbyist writing?

Also, I feel like some of my writing would benefit from images, but I've never had an eye for that. When gathering images to ethically use for a location or a work of fiction, are there any recommendations?

Thanks for any feedback!

 

[FelixSH]

Even before you mentioned it, this screamed "blog" to me. You could then promote the posts on social media, like how GoggleBob did. I mean, I don't do social media, so maybe that's nonsense, but maybe not?

I think you could get a small, but consistent audience with that. I read a blog that sounds similar - sometimes there were discussions of movies, sometimes about a video game topic, sometimes about depression. I didn't read everything, just the topics I was interested in. But I visited every week, to see if there was something new posted.

Also, I want blogs to come back, because they are great. But that might just be me.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Also, I feel like some of my writing would benefit from images, but I've never had an eye for that. When gathering images to ethically use for a location or a work of fiction, are there any recommendations?

If you're wanting free images then you'll want to look for ones with open usage licenses (like creative commons) and follow the rules of the license.

Will you be trying to monetize your writing in any way? That can complicate things.

 

[Kirin]

Also, even if they’re a bit long for typical forum posts, I wouldn’t feel bad about cross-posting your stuff to right here, especially in your own creative thread. People will take or leave it as they have time. Of course, our active membership is on the small side these days, so you’d probably want an outside blog as well for better availability to the general public.