Moving forward. It’s just one word in front of the other.
The hard part is not stopping. It’s no surprise that ‘journal’ and ‘journey’ have the same root. It’s really all about continuing… skill and ability and persistence and self-confidence, all those things you need to get and stay published, are emergent properties of continuing.
Keep writing.
Working on the edits for one novel… trying to write three others… attempting to compose a short story or two… do the serial as it goes along… plus lots of real life stuff. Looking forward to a move. Trying to get a job to pay for same. A whole new approach to parenting. Dealing with serious teenager issues.
It’s kind of too much.
But I’m still trying. It would help if I had more of a support system. My three dear friends do their best, but there’s only so much they can do.
I do have a sense of proportion about it all… I mean, I’m not dealing with alcoholics, drug addicts, car crashes, cancer, psychotic relatives, wartime rationing or the Black Plague.
Yet.
But I suspect, real life aside, it would probably help if I’d pick one project to work on, and do that. What do you think?
I forgot to mention that it was posted! It’s going to be a serial, written as I go. That means you are essentially reading the first draft, and I don’t know where it’s going to go, and who knows if it will ever be finished? So here’s a chance to see the process as it happens.
Thanks for reading!
There are two things you need to do FIRST.
Before you worry about how good you are, what genre you’re in, how marketable your work is, how to improve it, or whether it’s too derivative. While you’re still writing fan fiction. Before you get out of being too shy to show it. Before you take a single class, read a single how-to book, make a single revision note, before you even check your spelling.
Before you call yourself a writer at all, even within your secret heart.
First, be a reader. For pleasure, in your own time, for the joy of it.
Second, write things that you finish. FINISH. Short, long or otherwise, bring your stories to a conclusion at least three times (to show you consistently can) before you take any other steps along this career path.
If you do those two things, you are already halfway there. Already head and shoulders over most people who call themselves writers.
If you don’t do those two things, you aren’t anywhere.
There is a purity to having no choices, and a purity to having all choices, and in a strange way they are the same thing. If no one is making you do anything, pushing you in any specific direction, then there is no one to blame, no excuse that it wasn’t your fault, no way to do anything but face yourself and your options.
If it is all surrender, there’s nothing to fight against.
There’s something here I’m trying to say, but… it’s the result of long processes, and the ideas closest to my heart, and I don’t know how to explain without taking you through the entire process.
Sounds like a good book title, doesn’t it? But it’s really just a concept, at least, for now.
See, emotion does have inertia. If you’re used to thinking of yourself as inadequate in some area, for example, it takes serious work to overcome that and get your thoughts working in a different direction. The emotion at rest tends to stay at rest; the emotion in motion (okay, now we’re rapping, go with it!) tends to stay in motion.
If you can force yourself to think about your ways as good ways, your heart as a good heart, your time well spent, your efforts worth the work… then once you get started, it takes less work to keep feeling that way. Give it a try.
I don’t like to say too much about this whole Traditional Publishing Is Going Under in Favor of eBooks/No It’s Not controversy. I think, like most arguments that have at least two loudly shouting sides, the truth is somewhere in between. Most likely all the different formats will exist side by side, at least for the foreseeable future–unless some new third concept comes and takes us all by surprise.
That said, this is a really funny take on it.
This month we have something a little different. This story was designed to be told aloud, not read on the page. As a result, it will seem to read in a stilted and simplified fashion, if you’re used to reading novels and short stories. However, when performed, the characterization and sweep of it come back in. It’s an interesting project.
I hope you like it!
…and the money. Would you expect to learn to be a plumber, an accountant, a doctor, without scads of training and education? No.
Out of all the legal professions, only parenting and writing are considered to be very difficult crafts requiring a great deal of work and expertise, yet nobody feels the need to make parents or writers undergo training or practice.
Just my luck I’m doing both.
So: anybody with no cash can make a baby and have a bash at parenting, and anybody with no cash can get a pen and paper and have a bash at writing. I won’t speak to the former at the moment. Where can you get writing training?
The good news is that it’s all around you. Read. That’s the basic high school course, and the career college course, and the continuing education as well. Read. Never stop.
Beyond that, there are writing classes you can take (watch out for scams!) and conventions and meetups and critique groups and how-to books and other writers and a thousand, thousand websites. Much of this is free or low cost, so we do have it over many other professions. On the other hand, the competition is, if not stiff, at least an overwhelming flood.
Luck, yes. Talent, yes. But practice, persistence, hard work, and never giving up will trump them all.
