A writer's journey...

Ever wonder why you make the decisions you do? Do you ever find yourself making the similar choices over again, even if you weren’t happy with the result the last time? It’s possible that you are being driven by underlying emotions, or feelings you have buried alive. Maybe you were hurt by a blond man but desired his love. You find yourself disregarding any brown-haired male who seeks your attention, determined to make a blond man fall for you. Maybe you had a rough childhood and so you’re afraid of repeating the same mistakes your parents made that you avoid commitment, or maybe you have kids in an effort to right your upbringing. You can even get yourself “locked into a rut” because you FEAR the unknown. You may not even know why.  Most of us know the expression “you marry your father”.  If you look at your husband closely you may find that to be the case.  Why is that?  According to one source, there are a few reasons. The first one mentioned be...

We all have a list of responsibilities pages long--that's if we had time to actually write a to-do list.  It's true, isn't it? Life is busy, even beyond busy.  So how do you prioritize? Well, no one can tell you what needs to get accomplished first, second, third, and so on, except for you.  You know what needs  to be done.   In my journey to self-discovery, I've found that everything that needs to get done always does, but it's not necessarily on the timetable I had originally pegged for it.  So what can be taken away from this?  Why stress yourself out to the point of blocking good energy in your body with the negative? When you stress about reaching a target date, isn't it true, it becomes a burden? In fact, if you're like me, sometimes, these to-dos get pushed back.  Procrastination takes a front seat. What good does that accomplish?  While goals are needed to guide us--notice guide --they shouldn't be rigid. Ask you...

As authors we have to constantly work at perfecting our craft, just as any other endeavor in the arts.  A dancer must practice tirelessly to get the moves down.  A painter must learn to blend colors and work on a canvas.  I don't know of anyone who just picked up a guitar, for example, and played a tune without prior training. The same is true with writing -- it takes practice and knowledge. As you grow in the craft, you'll notice areas where you've improved but your eye will also become sharpened to observe areas in need of work.   Here's a few things to look out for: 1) Show, don't tell. 2) Make it succinct 3) Using your senses to sharpen a scene 4) Writing isn't a paint by numbers

" 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!

Last week, 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:  Setting Out to Writer Your First Novel and Completing Your First Novel. Setting out to write your first novel. This is where the fun begins.  You're infused with a passion and characters who are demanding their stories be told.  What if they stop "talking" to you?  Ever have that? What if you're going along and everything is coming along wonderfully…until…you're stuck.  How do you get your characters out of the situation they are in?  What's the next step? Perhaps you...

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...

Anyone who is driven has expectations.  As writers, I suspect we all are driven, or we would lack the discipline to "sit butt in chair" to write, to finish a first draft, to persevere through edits, keep up with the querying of agents, or commit to book formatting should we choose to self-publish.  But with that drive, and igniting of passion for the craft, we have expectations.  Examples of this can be goals that we set for ourselves.  We might give ourselves a target word count, a completion goal date.  Now, these are things we can control, but what about things we can't? For example, you want to land an agent by a certain date, you want to have your book picked up by a publishing house by a certain date, you have a sales target in mind where you'd like to see your books by a certain time.  But here's a question for you:  how do you handle it when your expectations fall short? Honestly, we are in control when it comes to our writing. ...

You've spent not only hours, but months, possibly years, perfecting your manuscript to the point you deem it ready to approach agents, and/or publishing houses directly.  But before you do, as writers we face the issue of whether to share our work with others, or hold onto it tightly. Of course, as the saying iron by iron is sharpened , there are benefits to sharing your work with fellow writers.  If they're experienced, and serious about the craft, they know what the industry is looking for more than necessarily an average reader. This isn't going to be a discussion on the importance of beta readers, or critique partners.  Nor is this post going to be cautionary tale that reminds you to know these people well before you forward your work.  In this post, I want to focus on a couple other areas. Online How much of your work do you share online?  I mean, obviously, this varies from author to author.  Remember this, though, everything you put ...

Okay, so for the last couple of days, I've been torn between a few works of mine.  First off, I'm in the midst of writing my 7th novel, and it's coming along nicely, but I'm also trying to finish off a polished draft of a synopsis for my 2nd mystery.  And in the midst of this, I had sent a few chapters of another finished novel of mine to a beta reader.  These came back, and I'm all fired up ready to strengthen the book even further.  I had thought it was already, but her insightful questions have challenged me to ratchet it up even more.  I love it!  I love the challenge of it, and know I can meet it.  The problem here people?  I only have so many hours in a day.  I also have a full-time job that sucks 40 hrs out of every week (of course I'm thankful to be employed especially these days).   I know the pressure's coming from myself, the internal voice barking to get everything done now .  Maybe you've found yourself in the...