How much is too much Blogging?

Gosh...

I didn't think I'd get into this but I really am.

Blogging is addictive, and I find myself counting the days until I deem it reasonably fit to blog again.

I wouldn't quite say it's a disease or an obsession, but it's definitely an urge and I'm hooked.

I find myself so into it that I can't wait an appropriate amount of days before I can post again. I have about ten or twelve posts already written waiting to be released. Is that sad?

I thought I wouldn't be able to carry out this thing. I had only started it in the first place because I wanted to establish some form of writing platform (see my first blog), but now this thing has become full-blown therapeutic. I get why so many people do it now.

I don't know who's out there interested in this, or who's actually reading it. Apparently there are some - and a big 안녕하세요 to the readers I've randomly attracted in South Korea!

But my question is this: How much blogging is too much blogging?

And now for the continuation of questions -
How often do you blog?
Why do you blog?
How long have you been blogging?
And if you're an unpublished author, do you feel as if blogging is getting you noticed?

Thanks for checking back in with me and following these things. I love the conversation it starts, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

SIDE NOTE: I've seen and written the word 'blog' so many times it now looks funny.
DOUBLE SIDE NOTE: I just realized I'm blogging about blogging. Lost it.

Mood Swings: Why I want to take my pen and stab myself!

Okay, so from about April of this year my writing went into full swing. I opened up the Word program on the laptop and ever since I've been writing everyday.

How obsessed I am with it is starting to alarm me as I've even appointments just to stay home and do it.

I just love writing. I get so lost in it. I start to believe my plots and get angry at my characters for doing things I forced them to do.

Of course what I'm going through in my everyday life affects my writing, but I'm finding that my writing is actually affecting my mood greatly.

I'm a frantic editor. I feel like no matter how much I read and re-read my work I always have some form of mistake or error - or a hundred errors that still appear there no matter how many times I've checked and re-checked! 

Sometimes I absolutely love my work, I adore it. I find what I've written or the idea I've had so compelling I can't stop re-reading it or talking about it to the one person who is closest to me. I love my overall story and concept.

Then I'll start from the beginning and re-read from chapter one. As I'm reading I slowly start to become dejected and suddenly I hate this damn trash I wrote! I go out and read the published work of other authors and feel like my work is a child's finger painting trying to stand out in a world of Picassos.

I have put my novels in a USB, and by now I can't count how many times I've thrown that thing into a cupboard, out a window or across the room. It's even come on a journey with me where I had meant to throw it in a public trash can, but after getting talked of the ledge I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Not only that, but my first novel got scrapped four times before I had the final story that I'm rigorously working on. I wrote 80,000 words then tossed it. 60,000 then deleted it. 100,000 words then started again. The last word count before getting canned was 63,000. Even though I like the shape of how the first novel starts now it still is never good enough! I loved the direction my second book took, but then the third book took the same fate of the first and is on it's third re-write.

I feel mental. I feel like a nut case. I feel like what I'm writing is useless and what I'm doing is hopeless.

Why am I writing this junk? Why am I doomed to be the only person who finds this interesting? Why do I waste so much of my life on it? Why can I not bring myself to stop?

I'm in a negative space right now, and I'm wondering if I'm the only one. How do people deal with this sort of thing, and does anyone have any advice for me?

The Fascination with Fan-Fiction

I don't get it.

Why do people write such mass volumes of fan-fiction?

Okay, maybe I get it a little. When I was fifteen or sixteen I fell so in love with Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind and it's more controversial sequel Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley, I then attempted to write a few chapters of what happened next. (If I'm honest with myself Scarlett is just overblown authorized fan-fiction, so I guess I have a love/hate relationship with it).

Don't judge me. Gone with the Wind is awesome, and frankly my dear I don't give a damn who knows it.

JUST TO GET DISTRACTED FOR A SECOND: STUFF CHRISTIAN GREY- I'm still hoping Rhett Butler is real.

But seriously - what makes a person so devoted, that they waste a tonne of time and energy, and then have the courage to post it online?

Now I'm not judging you. Really I'm not. On one hand it's great that the characters authors create inspire so much enthusiasm that their fans simply can't stop thinking about them. There are some authors who don't mind that sort of thing like the legendary J.K. Rowling (so long as it's kept PG). Whereas authors like Raymond Feist and Anne Rice are strongly against it.

Now let's not cry about it - authors aren't mean people who don't appreciate the support of their fans. Considering authors like Feist and Rice have built entire concepts, universes and relationships, the worlds they write in have the potential to expand all the time. It is as if they're writing a story that's never ending, and at the end of the day they have the right to fight fan fiction, as no one else knows their characters better than they do. Could you imagine someone ruining the legendary Lestat? Uh-uh. No thank you.

But fan-fiction is a big monster of a thing. After all, Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction (I've never read the Twilight series but to my shame I have read Fifty Shades). So I am still undecided on whether Twilight was a gift that kept on giving, or whether I should be sorely disturbed that it inspired an erotic romance that made billions.

So what is your opinion on fan-fiction? Waste of time? Or way to keep the characters you love alive?

+Anne Rice +Fifty Shades of Grey +Twilight +Harry Potter +Gone With the Wind