What is something every writer craves, besides an active imagination?
The answer is time. To be more specific: UNINTERRUPTED TIME.
Why?
So, you could write and possibly finish that novel you have been working on for a year. Or has it been two or three years? Since the pandemic started, it feels more like one big giant nightmare of when-will-this-ever-be-over kind of day/month/year. Sad, but true.
What if I told you that I know where there is a private island? Read more
You may have heard me snigger a little derisively when someone says, “Write what you know.” That’s because I’ve always been a big fan of the “Learn what you want to write about.” school of thought.
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I’ve always been the kind of guy that edits as I write.
I’m not trying to make my work perfect in the first pass, but I can’t leave glaring mistakes behind if I know they’re there.
That’s the way I am, the way I’m built. I can’t help it.
When I write, even if I have an idea, the mistakes that I might make can be more distracting for me than taking the time to correct them.
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Every word I’ve written has taken the slaying of a dragon to get to the page. The dragon is my resistance to writing that rears its ugly head each and every time I try to fool myself that I can write, or that I should write instead of the multitude of other tasks that lie undone. I don’t know what it’s like for other writers, how many face this resistance, but I know there’s a few of us.
I’m always left asking myself, Why do I want to do this if my inner self is always shouting, No? What makes me wake up at an ungodly hour, or shun social events, phone calls; so I can write, push against this resistance? If only I was at the gym, I’d be looking great by now. Read more
If writer’s block truly exists, then, in my humble opinion, it is nothing more than missing inspiration. If I’m inspired, nothing can stop me from writing.
Inspiration is the “Right mood” for the intercourse between the writer and the page.
It’s the thing that sends you scurrying for the candles and wine glasses, makes you light the fireplace and get that comforter out of the chest in the front hall, open the chocolates and put on the stereo … so to speak.
I’ve heard it a few times, but mostly from people repeating what they’ve heard other people say. And for the longest while, I thought it to be true.
It’s one of those things that people just hear and accept. Usually those things either seems logical, or they’re so far fetched that someone would have to be crazy to repeat them if they weren’t true, therefore, they must be true.
But sometimes the truth is obscured by the repetition of falsehoods to the point of those falsehoods becoming pseudo-facts.
The one I’m talking about is that oft repeated rule of writing, “write what you know.” Read more
It may seem obvious to say this, but the basic building blocks of writing … are words.
It may also seem obvious to say that among the differences between a good writer and a great one, is the choice of words they employ.
And yet, many writers don’t pay as much attention to their word choice as they might.
That statement is perfectly Read more
If you write, you edit.
There is no way around it.
Oh, you may think you don’t, many people write it down and leave it just the way it is. But they edited it as they were writing.
And if they didn’t go over it again, they made at least one mistake. Because even if you change nothing, going over your work provides you with the opportunity to assure yourself that the words you wrote said the thing you were trying to say.
But let’s say you did that. Let’s say you wrote something and you went over it and you think you’ve got it the way you want it. Let’s just say you’re all done. Bam! That’s all she wrote. Read more