“Nothing happens in my life worth writing about.” “I can’t write.” “I don’t have an imagination.”These are excuses I hear all too often.
And the painful thing of it is that it shows, not that people don’t lead exciting lives, but that people don’t write because they don’t know how this works.
And I, poor excuse for a teacher that I am, intend to set this wrong to rights.
I recently learned that although I don’t consider myself to be a procrastinator, when it comes to querying, I am.
There’s always something more to do;
The problem is – it’s a never ending cycle. If I am going to wait until the third book is polished, it could be another ten years before the first book is ready to query, because that’s about how long it took me to edit the first book. Read more
For most of us writers, doing the thing we love most entails planting our butt in a chair for hours on end. Not only are we physically inert, but our minds wander too. Writing is tedious work; boredom can easily set in. That’s when many of us feel the need for a little assistance to keep us focused and fueled.
Coffee, tea or…
By “assistance” what I really mean is a pleasant little diversion to keep us from going completely bonkers while we’re writing our next opus. And often, this diversion is a guilty pleasure, such as chocolate (one of God’s wonders for sure!), coffee (again, nectar from the Gods), tea, candy, or smoking for famous authors such as Patricia Highsmith, Oscar Wilde and George Orwell. Read more
This month, my writing group has taken an interest in developing their author websites and all I could think of while they were discussing this topic was… “Please don’t look at mine as an example.”
Why?
Because I’m one of those authors that still hasn’t decided on how to brand myself. You look at my landing page on my website and you will have no clue as to what I write. This is because I’m prone to genre-hopping. This allows me to write anything I want, whenever I want. I like to be in control. I don’t want to be known for only one thing. Yesterday, I worked on Literary Fiction and today I worked on a Suspense-Thriller novel. Who knows what I’ll work on tomorrow?
What’s wrong with that? Read more
So, I’m more than half way through writing the novel I’m currently working on, and I’ve hit a snag.
My characters have all gotten lazy.
They’re doing nothing. They’re talking about what’s happened so far, and they’re going through the motions of their day to day lives, but they’re not moving my plot ahead in any visible way.
And I’ve gotten bored with them.
Life is BusyWe all have commitments that fill up our day, our calendar and our thoughts.
At times, it seems as though my life and the choices I have made are overtaking my ability to continue to decide how I want to spend my day.
There comes a point where we need to clean house and decide what must stay on our ‘to do’ list, however, lately it seems the things that tend to get kicked off my plate are things I actually want to do.
Time to give up. Toss in the towel. Zip up the heart and close the computer screen.
If you know me at all, I can already imagine you shaking your head and mumbling,
“What’s the catch?”
Allow me to digress, one last time, into storytelling, because as I’ve stated, I’m quitting this writing thing. Read more
Have you ever wanted to change the solitary writing experience to one of collaboration and teamwork?
The idea of working with a co-writer on a screenplay has been simmering with me for ages and recently bubbled to the surface. I’m ready to take the leap.
Oh Lord it’s hard to be humble
When you’re perfect in every way
— from the song, “It’s Hard to be Humble”
You would think writers are the humblest people around.
They’ve become practiced at it from writing mountains and mountains of words, only for many if not all of those words never to see the light of day in the form of being published. Writers get used to rejections and criticism—from publishers, editors, reviewers, awards or contest judges, readers and even other writers.
With all that adversity, the writer’s ego should be in tatters, paralyzing him or her from writing another single word. And yet that’s hardly the case. Writers are some of the most resilient, tenacious people I know (they have to be if they want to continue doing what they love). Writers are also some of the most stubbornly egotistical people too. Read more