Write Every Day, Not "Some Day"!
I’m all for big dreams and Big Hairy Audacious Goals 1 (after all, I’m the one who set herself the goal of completing a short story every day in May!) but not all goals are appropriate at every stage in our development. What Is Success? Maybe you will get published in Granta or Ellery Queen [...]
The only way to learn how to write is to write. Write, finish, write some more. After that you can start worrying about critiques and editors and agents and publishing and publicity. But all of that is secondary to the writing. To become better at writing you must sit down and spin tales, craft stories, [...]
So you’ve decided you can be a better writer, you’ve listened to feedback and now you have resolved to act to strengthen your skills. Now, how do you do that? Seek Out Knowledge If you’re a self-starter, consider the feedback you’ve had and plug those terms (“realistic dialogue”, “character deveopment”) into a search engine. Seek [...]
If you want your writing to improve, it’s always a good idea to set a piece aside for a while and come back to it later. But sometime, not even a month’s Time Out in the dusty recesses of your hard-drive is enough to separate your story from your hopes for it, and the only [...]
Supreme Court Justice and life-long overachiever, Sonia Sotomayor was a C-student until she decided she wanted to do better. Disregarding questions of talent and opportunity and what was expected of her, she simply went to the top kid in her fifth grade class how she got all those gold stars. And then Sotomayor listened as [...]
Every writer with any measure of skill will, at some point, worry that their writing isn’t good enough Happily, you can find any number of articles and books telling us why you shouldn’t worry about it, how to break through the blocks it causes, how to ignore other people’s subjective opinions, and how to deal [...]
Last week we talked about the importance of writing even when you don’t feel like it. Well, enough theory. This week I bring you seven practical strategies for making it happen. Goals, rewards and accountability buddies form part of the big picture in this scheme. They are sensible parts of your writing’s career plan. But [...]
As we sit here, there are only seven days left in May. Seven more stories and then you’re free to take a break, keep writing, set your stories on fire or, preferably revise them into works of genius. To help you out with that latter option I’ve recruited Gabriela Pereira from DIYMFA.com to give you [...]
“If you want to write, practice writing. Practice it for hours a day, not to come up with a story you can publish but because you long to learn how to write well, because there is something that you alone can say. Write the story, learn from it, put it away, write another story.” – [...]
…but for the average working/studying/parenting/pulled-in-fifteen-directions aspiring writer, who will inspire us? Who will teach us our trade? Who will be our mentors?
Step-by-step instructions on how to write every day, not "some day". Lessons, workbooks and timesheets included!
WriterChatter