A writer's journey...

One bulb at a time.  At least that’s how the story goes to explain the above field of daffodils.   Nearly one million were planted over a period of forty years. Ever feel like you’re never going to accomplish your goals?  Sometimes we set rather large ones for ourselves--yet they are attainable.  We’ve heard it said before, ‘break down larger goals into smaller ones’.  And the advice is sound.  Think about writing a novel.  The task may seem very daunting when you start out, but as the words start to flow, the story comes together, and before you know it you’ve written a full length novel. Maybe you have yet to reach your goal of completing a novel.  Take heart.  A book may be made up of 60,000-100,000+ words, but when you break that down, what do you have?  One word at a time. The same advice and mindset can be taken when in the editing process, which can sometimes feel more daunting than a first draft. B...

There is only one way to avoid criticism:  do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. --Aristole When we set out to be published authors, we know that we're taking a chance on ourselves.  But it's even more than that. We're taking a chance on our writing, and for most of us, it's a very personal matter. We've made sacrifices to get our work to the point it can be published, and at some point, there's going to be someone who doesn't quite love our stories as much as we do.  This can hurt -- a lot.  But we don't give up!   Aristole said it best above.  I don't know about you but I'd rather get out there and reach those who do love my work.  I rather be something than nothing. And, this piece of advice doesn't just apply to writing.  It applies to every area of our lives.  If it makes you happy, if it fills a need in your soul, then it's worth the risk.  Be true to yourself and dare to be you!

Reaching goals takes effort.  For example, a runner needs to train before they enter a race.  This involves a lot of their time, possibly taking them from family and friends for a while.  They also adhere to a special diet.  But to the runner none of these sacrifices matter.  Their vision is on the finish line.   What about you with your writing?  Do you see where you want to go?  Do you see how you're going to get there?   Your answers may be positive in response to all of these questions, however, setbacks are bound to happen.  Going back to the illustration of a runner, maybe they catch a cold.  Are they going to let it stop them when they've come so far in their training?  Absolutely not.  They are going to push through. At the end of 2011, I shared a series entitled:   Tuck and Roll - The Writer's Highway . The first in the series touched on 4 "roadblocks" that can come up in our writing jour...

You might hear a lot of writers comment about how they have more ideas than they have time to write.  Maybe you're among them--but what if you're not?  Then what do you do? Well, inspiration is all around us.  It's up to us to take advantage of it.  There are times when we may find it hard to write because of stress or other life situations that crowd out our creative voice. Where can we find inspiration?   Here are 4 ways: 1) Writing prompts.  They are all over the Internet.  Just search for them. 2) Read local news.  As they say life is stranger than fiction.  You might find something really unique to work with and build on. 3) Start small.  Maybe a novel is overwhelming and stifling  your creativity.  Open it up by writing flash fiction.  Search Google Images for whatever subject you have in mind.  When you find a picture that speaks to you copy it and write a little passage o...

I’m going to start this post with another question:  What makes YOU happy? Quite a deep question isn’t it?  I believe for a lot of us rush through our lives from one responsibility to the next with little thought as to what truly makes us happy.  Usually it’s not until we face a stress-related health problem or some other “ah ha” moment that we realize a need to reassess our lives. This can happen to authors all too easily.  We have responsibilities that fall outside our writing, editing, and social networking.  We have domestic needs to care for, most of us have a day job we go to, and for some that’s just the start of it.  Maybe we’re parents and have to care for young ones, or tend to elderly parents?  No matter what your life situation, I believe it’s safe to say you have a lot going on. But when you think on that question, what makes YOU happy, what first comes to mind?  I found in this process that possessions, or the acq...

Maybe the title brought to mind that older movie, Mickey Blue Eyes, when the waitress said  emphatically   “No! And then!”   Or perhaps you thought this would be a blog post on how to eradicate those two words, or the feeling of them, from your manuscript?   In fact, this post is on neither, but what it is focused on is the danger those two words are representative of--procrastination! Isn’t it true that as writers, authors, our days are full.  Not only do we have the daily concerns of life, and responsibilities that come therewith, but we have our aspirations to write, to edit, to reach another goal of some kind. If only the necessities of life would move aside so that we could fully focus on our heart’s desire--writing.  Maybe you’re like me and say the above-noted dangerous words, more than you wish to admit.  I’m sure you know how it goes, “I just have to tweet this, and then I’ll do my edits”, “I’ll check my email, and then I’ll w...

Maybe the title of the post made you smile, the first thought being writers are the greatest procrastinators.   And while it’s true that we have the ability to network for hours, and let anything push our writing further along in a day (even doing the dishes), writers are a disciplined bunch. If we weren’t disciplined, first drafts would never be finished or seen through to the end.  In fact, I’d go as far to say that writers are a very hard working group of people.  We sacrifice time from family and friends to write, to edit, to pursue our passion—but that’s okay because we love writing. Now if you took the love of writing out of the recipe that would make an author, it would like leaving yeast out when you’re trying to make raised bread.  There would be no success. So we’ve established writers are hardworking, the question is can we go to the extreme with it?   Does our passion outweigh other important things in our life?   Or are things...

" In fact, if you wanted to make a cheery person with no predisposition to depression depressed, you could stick him in front of a typewriter or computer for hours a day--feed him a typical writer's diet--forbid him to exercise, isolate him from friends, and convince him that his personal worth depended on his "numbers." Make him live the writer's life, in other words, and watch him sag." - Elizabeth Moon Elizabeth said it well in her post on writers and depression.  No matter how good our books may be doing, or at what point we're in with our journey, there are highs and lows that we experience. Writing is a private journey shared on a busy road with strangers.  All of them clamoring to stand out - some do more than others.  Sometimes other people's successes can make ours feel somewhat insignificant. Even while it's true that some of these faces start to look familiar, and we make terrific friends along this road, we can still feel the blues...

Weeks ago, I posted the introductory for a serial called: Tuck and Roll - The Writer's Highway.   If you missed the post,  here  it is.   This series is meant to encourage and inspire you as a writer along your journey. I brought out the illustration of a caterpillar.  Hence, the picture on this post.  We'll view this little guy as a sort of mascot the series. So let's begin.  Today we'll discuss overcoming obstacles at these points in our journey: receiving negative reviews and all your novels are published, now what? Handling Bad Reviews Okay, finally, all your hard work has come to this – you are published.  You’re very pleased with your final product.  Maybe you chose to edit your book yourself, maybe you hired an editor.  Either way you are proud to say that book is your “baby”.  Now comes the scary part.  Some have likened being published to standing naked in the streets.  And let’s face it, not everyone is goin...

Weeks ago, I posted the introductory for a serial called: Tuck and Roll - The Writer's Highway.   If you missed the post,  here  it is.   This series is meant to encourage and inspire you as a writer along your journey. I brought out the illustration of a caterpillar.  Hence, the picture on this post.  We'll view this little guy as a sort of mascot the series. So let's begin.  Today we'll discuss overcoming obstacles at these points in our journey: receiving agent rejections and the course of self-publication.

A couple weeks ago, I posted the introductory for a serial called: Tuck and Roll - The Writer's Highway.   If you missed the post last week,  here  it is.   This series is meant to encourage and inspire you as a writer along your journey. I brought out the illustration of a caterpillar.  Hence, the picture on this post.  We'll view this little guy as a sort of mascot the series. So let's begin.  Today we'll discuss overcoming obstacles at these points in our journey: Editing your novel and receiving criticism. Editing So you pull yourself through the second stage.  You convince yourself your book is worthy of saving and you're going to put more work into it. But after the tenth pass through you're getting really sick of reading it.  Maybe you're even starting to think it stinks again.  TUCK AND ROLL!

Most things in life don't go according to plan.  Sometimes we're lucky and things we strive for are achieved with only slight detours.  However, there may be major detours in our path.  These roadblocks can set us turning around or taking the long route to make it to our destination. We must ask ourselves: do we let these things stop us from making it where we're headed? Think about our writing journey as if it were a literal road trip that is going to take us hours from home.  What issues can come up?  I mentioned roadblocks and whether these be an accident or construction they can have us taking an unexpected direction.  Other times these roadblocks merely slow us down.  As we travel we can also encounter bad weather, car problems and any number of unforeseen circumstances.  Maybe we get into a minor accident. So how does this apply to our writing?  And how does this apply with the title of this post "Tuck and Roll"? We have t...

If you can empathize with the title of this post, then you're not alone.  So many writers, myself included, can honestly say they have family members who don't support their writing.  Some may go so far as to tell you they don't even want to hear about what you're working on, what you've done, what your goals are.  That hurts. But think about it this way, in some ways is writing any different that an other life decisions your family may not agree with?  I'm sure, if you're like me, you get very defensive when it comes to your writing.  In fact, I'm not going to deny that it places an iron wedge in the relationships.  After all, if your focus in life is your writing, and they ask so what have you been up to ...what are you supposed to do lie, remain quiet, answer another way even though you're so excited about your current WIP you'd tell a stranger?  Ticking clocks are heard in the background while you decide.

Ever feel like a type of “Energizer Bunny” that keeps going and going, and going?  But in your case it’s writing, writing, writing, editing, editing, editing, revising, revising, revising, querying, querying, querying?  If so I can relate. For some reason I believe us writers are programmed this way.  We have an inward drive to succeed, and we have goals.  We’re driven towards a target whether that be finishing a manuscript, a date we want to query by, edits we want to finish, or a date we want to publish by.  Sometimes the timeframe is set by us, and sometimes it’s put in place by others.   But at what cost are we pursing our goals? I believe that it’s important for us to take time to just be ourselves, to unwind, to allow ourselves to have time away – guilt-free – from the WIP, the edits, the querying, the marketing, the networking, and just be us.  Why?  Because if we don’t we risking losing it all together.   Our focus will be so off-...

Discouragement has been discussed on this blog before, but I believe it’s a subject worth discussing periodically.  Because, let’s face it, discouragement comes around from time to time. We’ve talked about reaching out to support other writers when we feel like this, and how thinking about other people gets the focus off ourselves.  We’ve also talked about the importance of being realistic.  This is key, in my opinion.  To think that everyone is going to drop what they’re doing to read your book, or hang on to your every tweet, is ridiculous.  Treasure every sale, and value every mention. But what else can we do to combat negative feelings? Resign yourself to the fact you will have days where you feel negative.   These feelings can be in regards to your writing and/or impact not only the writing community but on your readers.  These are the days that all you will hear are the negative things.  It doesn’t ...

Are there times when you're not sure what to write next?  Maybe you have so many ideas it's hard to pick just one.  Or maybe your mind can't focus on writing a new work, even though an inner compulsion is telling you it's time to start one. I've found myself in both of these places before, and honestly find myself at this point right now.  While I want to write a new book, at this point the amount of mental dedication it takes is just enough to stress me out.  This stress has compressed the voices of new characters into a mumbled cacophony. So, why does this happen?  In my opinion, the mind can only handle so much.  With that being said, between life responsibilities and the dedication to other aspects of our writing whether this be editing, querying (for some), or marketing, there's only so much mental capacity. Anyway, I'm trying to pull from a time I felt "stumped" by a character who wasn't fully cooperating.  I had the concept for t...

When I started this blog, it was with the purpose of reaching out to, and meeting writers like myself.  Since so much of our time is spent alone with our thoughts and the characters we create, when we emerge from those worlds, we need others who can relate to us. Some of us are fortunate enough to have terrific support in the form of a spouse, significant other, or friends.  But the truth is, no matter how much they are there for us, a person who is not a writer cannot fully understand the struggles we go through. They don't know what it is like to experience the highs and lows that come with writing.  They don't know the importance of a crisp first five to get an agent's attention, the importance of show don't tell.  They don't know the work that goes into creating the perfect query, or synopsis.  And in truth,  being a writer can bring a lot of negativity. We're always reminded of how perfect our character development and prose needs to be if we want t...