Tag Archives: inspiration

4 Lies That Are Keeping You From Writing a Book

Leave a reply

There is a book inside you.

There has to be. Why else are you reading a post about writing a book?

lies 2

Getting that book out, of course, is the extremely difficult part. The words don’t come out as we imagine. The time to write shrinks as life gets busier.

And so many questions vex us — so many lies that we tell ourselves to avoid the challenge ahead.

But you have to write your book. It’s one of the greatest driving forces in your life.

4 Lies That Stop You From Writing Your Book

Before you can get started, you have to confront and reject the four lies that have probably been keeping you from writing the book of your dreams. Tackle these lies head-on, and replace them with the truth:

1. It has to be long

How long should a novel be? Is there an exact number of words or pages for it to be a success?

This question can certainly stop us in our tracks. The idea of writing a novel always seems enormous, like climbing the world’s tallest mountain.

Yet there is no rule about how long the book has to be. That’s up to you.

Sure, there are genre-specific suggestions about word counts. The good news is that most of them are lower than you might think! Especially if you are a new author, agents and editors want to see how much story you can tell with fewer words, saving on publishing costs.

There is no absolute book length that works. Of Mice and Men is 30,000 words long, while A Game of Thrones is 300,000.

It’s up to you and your creative process, so don’t let false expectations and fear tell you that your book won’t be long enough to count.

2. I have to have the story figured out

This lie is a crippling one. It demands perfection even before we’ve started.

Yet it is impossible to know exactly how our stories are going to go before we’ve written them. Every attempt at a story runs into surprises and roadblocks. Our plans, no matter how exhaustive, always fail to materialize just how we thought they would.

This is completely natural — and it’s really, really good!

Yet our inner perfectionist makes impossible demands. It suggests that deviating from your plan is somehow failure.

But this is a lie! Creativity is deviation from the plan! It is finding solutions when logic and order don’t work!

So while it is extremely wise to have a plan, and know where your story is generally going, don’t give up on your book dream just because you haven’t created it yet!

3. I’ll start but I won’t finish

My favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth, which features one of my favorite storytelling devices: the self-fulfilling prophecy. By resisting the witches, Macbeth brings about his own tragic doom.

Unfortunately, this trope extends into real life, especially with artists like us. We long to create, but fear that we lack the discipline or talent to finish something good.

So we give up before even starting. Hence, the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don’t let this lie seduce you. It  is especially seductive because it delivers a sense of false control: “If I don’t start, then I won’t fail,” the thinking goes.

To fulfill your dream of writing a book, you have to commit to finishing, no matter what. Even if you fall off the wagon for a season, you can still get back in the writing groove.

But you have to get started first.

4. No one’s going to read it

This is similar to the previous lie because it speaks a prophecy that we fulfill on our own. “No one’s going to read it, so I just won’t write it,” we think to ourselves.

What a tragic lie! Our struggling self-confidence produces tangible failure, all by doing nothing!

We can’t know who’s going to read or buy our book yet. We just can’t. By the time we’ve finished writing it, our life situation will have changed because time rolls on.

I will say this, though: Very few people actually fulfill the commitment to write a book.

Most hem and haw, mumbling about “wishing” and “someday.” Very few actually do it.

By writing a book, you will attract readers to yourself, especially if you serve those readers along the way.

One popular way of writing a book is to blog it, as Andy Weir did with The Martian. One chapter at a time, he posted to his website and slowly gathered a following. While he is certainly a rare and privileged case, it shows how giving and serving with our writing can solve our readership problem.

Commit to Your Book

There’s a book inside of you. That’s why you’re on this website, looking for help with your writing.

So commit.

Whether it’s 100 words a day, 500, or 1000, commit to working on your book every day.

Join a community, like a local writer’s group, Becoming Writer, or the 100 Day Book Program. Hold yourself accountable by joining other writers with a similar dream as yours.

But whatever you do, own the reality that you are a writer with a dream. There is a book inside of you that is longing to be written. It won’t be easy. It never is.

But it is beautiful and totally worth it.

So commit to your book today, and begin the journey that will change your life forever!

Have you committed to writing your book? Share how you’re keeping up with your commitment in the comments below!

By David Safford
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

 

12 Nature-Inspired Creative Writing Prompts

Leave a reply

Today’s post includes a selection of prompts from my book, 1200 Creative Writing Prompts. Enjoy!

Creative writing prompts are excellent tools for writers who are feeling uninspired or who simply want to tackle a new writing challenge. Today’s creative writing prompts focus on nature.

For centuries, writers have been composing poems that celebrate nature, stories that explore it, and essays that analyze it.

Nature is a huge source of inspiration for all creative people. You can find it heavily featured in film, television, art, and music.

Creative Writing Prompts

You can use these creative writing prompts in any way you choose. Sketch a scene, write a poem, draft a story, or compose an essay. The purpose of these prompts is to inspire you, so take the images they bring to your mind and run with them. And have fun!

  1. A young girl and her mother walk to the edge of a field, kneel down in the grass, and plant a tree.
  2. The protagonist wakes up in a seemingly endless field of wildflowers in full bloom with no idea how he or she got there.
  3. Write a piece using the following image: a smashed flower on the sidewalk.
  4. A family of five from a large, urban city decides to spend their one-week vacation camping.
  5. An elderly couple traveling through the desert spend an evening stargazing and sharing memories of their lives.
  6. A woman is working in her garden when she discovers an unusual egg.
  7. Write a piece using the following image: a clearing deep in the woods where sunlight filters through the overhead lattice of tree leaves.
  8. Some people are hiking in the woods when they are suddenly surrounded by hundreds of butterflies.
  9. A person who lives in a metropolitan apartment connects with nature through the birds that come to the window.
  10. Write a piece using the following image: an owl soaring through the night sky.
  11. A well-to-do family from the city that has lost all their wealth except an old, run-down farmhouse in the country. They are forced to move into it and learn to live humbly.
  12. Two adolescents, a sister and brother, are visiting their relatives’ farm and witness a sow giving birth.

Again, you can use these creative writing prompts to write anything at — poems, stories, songs, essays, blog posts, or just sit down and start freewriting.

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

 

Poetry: Making Music with Words

Leave a reply

Most writers are primarily concerned with the meaning of the words they choose. Is the language precise and accurate? Do the words provide the best connotation for what the writer is trying to communicate? Does the language show, rather than tell?

But poets take language a step further and push it into the realm of music. Poets care about meaning, precision, and accuracy as well as connotation and imagery. But they also care about how words sound, because musicality is a fundamental feature of poetry.

Poets use various elements of music to compose a poem. But because the written word is read and not heard, some elements of music aren’t available, like pitch and timbre.

Spoken word and performance (or slam) poetry are exceptions, because these works are designed to be heard and can incorporate musical elements that aren’t available to authors who write to be read. But most poets rely on a variety of literary devices and techniques to bring music to their work. Foremost among these are meter, sound, rhyme, repetition, and structure.

Meter (Rhythm)

In poetry, meter is a syllabic pattern, which is determined by stressed and unstressed syllables. We’ll use bold to denote stressed syllables in the first line of “What Kind of Times Are These” by Adrienne Rich:

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

Let’s see what happens when we strip away the language, so we can see the raw meter of the line:

da-da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-da DUM DUM da-DUM

As you can see, the meter gives the poem rhythm, an underlying drumbeat. This demonstration shows why it’s important to review the syllables in the lines of your poetry to check the meter.

Sound (Melody)

A song’s melody is determined by the sequence and length of notes played or sung by musicians. In poetry, melody is driven by the vowel and consonant sounds within the words of the poem. Consider this simple tune: la de-da, la de-da, la-la-la. 

Now compare it to this: doo-da, doo-da, doo-de-da.

We don’t know the exact notes or melody just from reading these sounds, but there is an implied tune when we read them aloud. We can bring a little rhythm to the sounds as well by placing stress on select syllables:

LA de-da, LA de-da, LA-LA-LA. 

DOO-da, DOO-da, DOO-de-DA.

So how do we put it all together? By choosing words that match the melody and meter that we’re aiming for:

LA de-da, LA de-da, LA-LA-LA. 
On the dock, six o’clock, stomp on rock

DOO-da, DOO-da, DOO-de-DA.
Stooping, drooping, boorish king

You’ll notice that in addition to rhythm and meter, we introduced some rhymes.

Rhyme

The most common rhymes are perfect end rhymes–words that appear at the end of lines in poetry and that rhyme perfectly. Here’s an example from Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot
Nothing is going to get better, it’s not.

The words lot and not rhyme perfectly and are placed at the end of the first two lines, respectively. The placement of rhyme in a poem, coupled with its meter, can give the lines a sing-song quality. We can use different meters, sounds, and rhyme placements to pull different musical qualities into our poetry. Here’s an excerpt from “Spelling” by Margaret Atwood, which shows internal rhymes:

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite

Try reading these lines aloud to hear the inherent music contained within. Notice that the lines do not use a metrical pattern, but the layered internal rhymes give it rhythm:

  • away and breaks
  • hot and rock
  • bones, open, and flows
  • The word point appears three times in these five lines, but the repetition of this word is barely noticeable.

It’s worth noting that some poems don’t rhyme at all. Rhyme is important in poetry, but it’s actually a subset of a broader and even more important poetic device that is essential in both poetry and music: repetition. After all, rhyme is just repetition of sounds.

Repetition

Repetition is the technique that really sums up how we make music out of words in poetry. All of the techniques mentioned above ultimately use repetition:

  • We create a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables — and a pattern is really just repetition.
  • We choose words and arrange them in such a way that they create a pseudo melody, which is achieved primarily by patterning (or repeating) certain sounds.
  • And we use rhyme — maybe end rhymes that ring like cymbals or internal rhymes that jingle like a tambourine. Rhymes are, by nature, repetition.

Layering the repetitions of these elements creates greater musical dynamics in a poem.

As you can see, a poem’s musicality really comes from the repetition of various elements within the lines and stanzas. And there are more elements that we can repeat. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in close proximity: prickly pears. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in close proximity: hat rack.

Some poems even use repetition in their very structure.

Structure

A poem’s music also comes from its structure — the length of lines and stanzas, placement of line and stanza breaks, punctuation, and spacing. All of these elements contribute to the poem’s structural sounds and therefore contribute to its musicality.

In music, a rest is an interval of silence. In poetry, these intervals are indicated by line breaks, stanza breaks, punctuation, and spacing. Rests are similar to the concept of white space in art.

For example, punctuation provides indicators for pausing (or resting) with commas and periods or inflections for questions and exclamations.

Do You Make Music with Poetry?

Plenty of excellent works of poetry aren’t especially musical. But musicality is an important aspect of poetry.

How do you infuse your poetry with music?

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

7 Ways to Bring More Artistry to Your Writing

1 Reply

The killer and the poet — ideally both in balance.

That’s our theme for writers in 2018:

To sharpen up your “killer” side with strategic, analytic, and technical skills, without ignoring your “poetic” side that has the talent to create fascinating content.

Today’s post is about nurturing that inner poet — and adding more artistry to your posts, podcast scripts, and video content.

I use each of these every day, to shape each piece of writing with as much craft and care as I can.

The first is one of the great pleasures of being a writer …

#1: Read widely

A good writer should be a compulsive reader.

Cultivate the habit of reading anything and everything that interests you. If you only read other blogs about marketing writing, your voice is going to stiffen up.

Read fiction. Read nonfiction. Read biographies. Read poetry. Read anything that turns you on.

Reading about various topics gives you perspective. (Which has a funny way of sparking some of your best ideas in your main topic.) And reading various voices gives you words, phrases, and verbal music to inspire that inner poet.

From time to time, it’s a fabulous idea to listen to audiobooks as well. You’ll experience the language differently, and notice turns of phrase and writing rhythms that can start to spark new ideas for your own work.

#2: Speak it aloud

If you want your writing to have more music, you need to know what it sounds like. You need to read it aloud.

This is the fastest way to find missing words, typos, clichés, awkward phrases, and confusing passages. You’ll also often discover logical problems, or content that’s trying to address too many ideas at once.

I like to read an entire piece of content through at least once. I’ll also read a phrase or two out loud in a later editing pass, if I’m not sure it’s as clear as it should be.

For even more fun, read some of your favorite writers aloud sometimes, as well. You’ll notice all kinds of things about their writing that you’d missed before.

#3: Follow the Rule of 24

Larry Brooks wrote a post for us about this, and it’s a terrific rule of thumb.

Once you’ve finished your post — including what you think are all of your edits — let it rest for 24 hours before you publish it.

Then take a final look. You’ll find odd, embarrassing, or just bland words and phrases that you missed, no matter how careful your earlier edits.

Fresh eyes are perceptive eyes. Give yourself a good night’s sleep, then look at your work with those fresh eyes.

#4: Look for analogies

One of the best ways to add texture, voice, character, and persuasive power to your writing is to use more interesting analogies.

Keep your eyes open for these, and add them to your creative journal or content idea file whenever they occur to you.

While you’re at it, watch for compelling quotes, fascinating stories, and juicy data points that will add richness to your work.

Don’t have a journal or system yet to capture those? Start one.

#5: Select the thoughtful detail

Too much detail makes writing feel overstuffed and indigestible.

But a few details, carefully chosen, bring writing to life.

Details shine more brightly when they’re set, like perfect gemstones, all by themselves. Cram too many into one sentence and they start to look cluttered — and cheap.

Specific, sensory details add resonance to your writing and make it more memorable. Milton Erickson’s African violet story would be much less memorable if the woman had merely grown “flowers.”

Look for a color, a texture, a smell, or another sensory detail that can be added — sparingly.

By the way — if your topic doesn’t necessarily lend itself to sensory detail, your interesting analogy may uncover some opportunities.

#6: Exfoliate

When I edit content, whether or not I wrote it, the first thing I do is read through the piece and get rid of unnecessary words.

Here’s an example from one of my podcast scripts. There was a lot of verbal filler that could be trimmed without losing meaning.

I want to talk about something that seems to me to keep that keeps so many folks who could be doing great work from getting recognition.

Then, I usually do a second pass and look for even more unnecessary words. These critters are sneaky — they like to hide out in your writing, often camouflaging themselves as conversational style.

After that, I’ll do a third pass looking for phrases that are too long or just clunky, rewriting as I go. (The read-aloud nearly always finds a few of these.)

In a fourth pass, I look for overly “fancy” words that can be replaced with simpler or clearer ones. By this time, I’ll also have noticed any words that have been overused. For example, when writing this article, I used the word fantastic four times in the original draft.

Our Editor-in-Chief Stefanie Flaxman calls this process “writing exfoliation.” Every pass through the piece will reveal little rough spots that can be smoothed.

Once you have more experience, you’ll often catch multiple problems at once. A single pass might reveal a long sentence that can be cut into two, a pile of unnecessary words, some clunky phrasing, and a few Fancy Nancy words that can be simplified.

But no matter how experienced a writer or editor you are, the more passes you make, the smoother the writing will get. Four or five passes is typical for me, and I have no problem going to eight or nine (or more) if I feel a piece needs it.

By the way, it’s possible to exfoliate a sentence so much that it gets vague or confusing.

What blocks recognition?

That one went too far, if it’s intended to convey the idea from the original sentence above. Your read-aloud step will catch those and give you the chance to restore any lost clarity.

#7: Write every day

I’ve saved the most powerful for last.

If you want to be a much better writer, the wisest thing you can do is cultivate a habit of writing every day.

It doesn’t need to be thousands of words. It might be a paragraph or two, or even a thoughtful (and carefully edited) social media post.

Writing every day doesn’t mean publishing every day. Journal writing counts. So do drafts or sections of content you think you might publish later. Or rough sketches of ideas that you may or may not develop.

When you write every day, something funny happens in your brain. What Stephen King calls “the boys in the basement” start to get more active.

They start sending you more ideas, more turns of phrase, more metaphors, more stories, more fascinating details, more words. They notice more, and that means you start to become more creative — and more productive.

You don’t have to reach your mythical 10,000 hours to be a damned fine writer.

But the more often and consistently you practice, particularly if you spend plenty of time shaping and refining your work, the better you’re going to get.

How about you?

What are your favorite tips to hone your craft? Let us know in the comments!

Source: copyblogger.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Your Story Matters (Or… What a Reader Wants You to Know)

Leave a reply

Hi, dear Villagers! *waves*

Let me take a brief moment to introduce myself. I’m Carrie, aka MeezCarrie, of ReadingIsMySuperPower. And I LOVE STORY!! I love short stories. I love epic stories. I love in between sized stories. I love contemporary stories. Historical stories. Mystery stories. Amish stories. Even some speculative and YA stories.

But most of all? I love THE Story. The one that starts with the ultimate ‘once upon a time’ – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) – and ends with the best ‘happily ever after’ ever (Revelation 21:4)

Because we are all part of that Story.

Yes, we all have a story in progress that is our own life. But everyone we meet does, too. And all those stories-in-progress are part of the Big Story that God is telling. Let me tell you – that is SO exciting to me!

I’m one of the new Seekerville bloggers, but I’m not seeking publication. I’m content to read other people’s stories and talk (incessantly) about them. But that up there? What I just said about being part of God’s Story?

That means I’m sorta like all the rest of y’all.

In a small way.

Ok.. not at all the same.

BUT… I am part of the greatest Story in the world. And so are you. That’s pretty stinkin’ incredible. The Author and Finisher of my Faith is telling a Story about me and about you. And He has promised to keep writing it until it’s completed – not when I die or when you die, but until the day Jesus returns. (Philippians 1:6)

Back in November, I had the pinch-me privilege of speaking with Cynthia Ruchti at the Art of Writing Conference just ahead of the 2017 Christy Awards gala. We talked about the darts of author discouragement and how to dodge them. After our session, a woman came up to me in tears. She whispered, “I didn’t know anybody else knew how I feel.” And then we both were in tears lol!

Author friends – can I encourage you a moment? You’re not alone. Writing may be a solitary career but the discouragements are consistent. Fear of rejection. The reality of rejection. Fear of the  possibility of a bad review. The depths of despair over an actual bad review. Your family doesn’t take you seriously. Your friends don’t take you seriously. It doesn’t pay the bills. It barely pays for coffee.

Oh… wait… I was supposed to be encouraging you. LOL.

I really was headed here, I promise.

You’re not alone. And you’re not left defenseless.

God has given you each other, and He has given you His Word. Community and grace wrapped up in a safe place like Seekerville.

You want to know another secret? YOUR STORY MATTERS.

Yep. I went there: all caps.

Because it’s so incredibly true and so incredibly important to understand.

The story you’re writing matters.

That story you’ve agonized over. The one that’s kept you up all hours of the night. The one that may or may not currently be taunting you with a blinking cursor of ‘I got nothing’. It matters. Even if no one else ever reads it. Even if no agent or publishing house wants it. Even if your beta readers and editors send it back with more tracked changes than you had words to start with.

Your story matters. Believe it. And believe in it.

But you know what? The story that God is writing in you and through you matters most of all. He is making you more like Jesus every day. He knew you before He formed you in your mother’s womb, and He had already had plans for your life. (Psalm 139, Jeremiah 1) He created you as a writer before you even had fully developed hands to hold a pen or tap away on a keyboard. Even better – He knew your role in His Story before you ever made your grand arrival on planet Earth. And that story matters on a scale we can’t even begin to imagine.

Maybe you’re like me and the only thing you write is a blog post… or a grocery list. Your story matters too. God placed you in His Story at just the right time and in just the right place so that you would come to know Him (Acts 17). He pursued you with an everlasting love and has engraved you on the palm of His hand. (Jeremiah 31, Isaiah 49). Think about that for a second – you matter so much to the God of the Universe that those nail-scarred Hands have your name on them.

Your story matters. Believe it. And believe in it.

I know good stories. I’m surrounded by them, à la the Dr. Seuss method of decorating. All the crannies, all the nooks, etc. This Big Story that God is telling is a good story. It’s the best story. It’s the standard by which all other stories are measured (whether they realize it or not). It’s also a true story. This fairy-tale to beat all fairy-tales – a prince on a white horse come to vanquish the enemy and rescue his bride – that’s OUR story (Revelation 19).

So when you’re tempted to throw in the towel and give up on your story – the one you’re writing or the one you’re living – remember this:

Your story matters. Believe it. And believe in it.

By Carrie Schmidt
Source: seekerville.blogspot.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

How to Spark Your Story With an Inciting Incident

3 Replies

If you are planning on writing a story, there is something you need to consider besides basic plot structure. You need to determine your Inciting Incident.

What incident will compel your protagonist to act?

What Is an Inciting Incident?

I am reading The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne and Story by Robert McGee to learn how to write a compelling story. Both Coyne and McGee emphasize the importance of writing a compelling inciting incident.

To incite means to stir, encourage, or urge on; to stimulate or prompt to action.

An inciting incident, then, is an event that forces your protagonist to act, compelling them to stop sitting around and do something.

Shawn Coyne has this to say about inciting incidents:

No matter the unit of story (beat, scene, sequence, act, or global Story) what the inciting incident must do is upset the life balance of your lead protagonist/s. It must make them uncomfortably out of sync . . . for good or for ill.

Robert McKee agrees:

If the protagonist’s toaster breaks it won’t compel her to get a job because she can afford to buy a new toaster.

However, if her bank manager steals all of the money from her account and flies to Brazil, she will be compelled to get a job. She is forced to act.

As Robert McKee says,

The protagonist must react to the Inciting Incident.

Why Do You Need an Inciting Incident?

If nothing happens to your protagonist you don’t have a story. Something has to happen.

Without an inciting incident nothing meaningful can happen. And when nothing meaningful happens, it’s not a story. —Shawn Coyne

If the story I am writing is about a toaster, but my toaster doesn’t do anything but sit on the counter, there is no story.

If the toaster catches on fire and burns down the house, then there is a story. Will the toaster get caught? Will the fire department blame the cat? Can the toaster be repaired?

How Does an Inciting Incident Happen?

An inciting incident can happen in one of two ways:

  1. By choice
  2. By accident

The protagonist might choose to adopt six cats, buy a one-way ticket to Japan, or decide to enter a hairy leg contest. All of these inciting incidents would compel the protagonist to take action.

Inciting incidents that are not by choice can happen as a coincidence, randomly, or as an accident. The protagonist meets a Naval Officer at a bar. A cat climbs into the protagonist’s lap and refuses to leave. You thought your flight left Bangkok at two in the afternoon, but it left at two in the morning, and there are no flights for another three days and you have spent all of your money.

No matter whether the inciting incident happens by choice or by accident, Robert McKee says it should occur “in the first 25 percent of the telling, no matter what the medium.”

If the writer, playwright, or screenwriter waits too long to incite the protagonist to action, the reader or audience might get bored and not continue with the story.

How Do You Resolve the Inciting Incident?

Shawn Coyne says the ending of a story must have two things:

  1. The ending must be reasonable and an inevitable result of the inciting incident.
  2. The ending must be surprising.

He gives examples of inciting incidents from different genres that have climaxes that are expected.

Murder mystery

  • Inciting incident = the discovery of a dead body
  • Climax = solving of the crime

Love story

  • Inciting incident = lovers meet
  • Climax = will the couple stay together?

Horror novel

  • Inciting incident = attack by the monster
  • Climax = confrontation between lead character victim and the monster from the inciting incident

An inciting incident creates chaos in the life of the protagonist. The story occurs when the protagonist tries to get their life back into balance. As Robert McKee says,

Characters are what they do. Story events impact the characters, and the characters impact events.

The climax or resolution of the story will put the protagonist’s life back together in some sort of new way, for better or worse. Hopefully, it will put their life back into balance.

What will your protagonist do? What is going to incite them to take action? Please let me know in the comments.

By Pamela Hodges
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Don’t let your dream die with you

Leave a reply
Arden Edwin Harper
May 17, 1926–January 8, 2018

The man pictured at top is my father, Arden Edwin Harper. He died this past Monday at the age of 91, and I miss him more than I can say. But I don’t want my loss (and that of my brother and sister) to override the value of the lesson he taught me. Of course there were many lessons, but the one I’m referring to is to not wait another minute to do (or at least put into action a plan to do) something you’ve always wanted to experience or accomplish.

 While my father was a highly-educated man–he had a master’s degree and was a teacher, coach, principal, and superintendent of schools throughout his entire career in education (and beyond, since he taught mathematics at two different community colleges following his retirement from the public school system), he was also a gifted writer. Late in his life, around 80 or so, he began to take an interest in writing stories about his youth, his high school and college years, his experiences in the Army during World War II, and other topics. He had a phenomenal memory and could recall the names, dates, places, sisters, brothers, parents, etc., of everyone and every place that populated his stories. I have one book-length manuscript he wrote detailing his time in the Army during WWII, and many shorter essays/stories on other topics. I recall when I was younger hearing him say he’d like to write a book one day. I always assumed he would. After all, he was my dad; he could do anything.

When his interest in writing was re-kindled, he was into his ninth decade on this earth. Technology was a real challenge for him, although he was as sharp as he ever was right up until about a week before his death. Intelligence wasn’t the problem. It was not being able to keep up with the constant changes in technology and the publishing process that eroded his desire. Oh, he still enjoyed the act of writing and hearing my reactions to his pieces of work, but his interest in actually publishing anything at that late date was slowly being extinguished. It seemed insurmountable. Perhaps it was.

I mourned that loss, and tried many times to convince him that he still had so much to offer the world, that there weren’t many WWII veterans left who could so accurately tell their stories of that time in our history, that I would help all I could with any questions he had on computers, technology, or submitting his work. But I think he felt it was just too late. But I don’t think so. I think he could have done a fine job of writing that book (or books) even at his age. I think he thought he could always do it tomorrow, but tomorrow turned into next week and next month and next year, and eventually led to his last day.

I’m certainly not disappointed in the writing work he did accomplish. It is well-written, hilarious, inspirational, historically accurate, and done expertly. I will cherish it always. I’m disappointed, though, that he never had the chance to hold his published book in his hands and tell himself, “I did this.” Because he could have.

Now I know our desires and dreams change as we age. Other things were just as–or maybe more–important to him as time went on as writing ever was. He was happy, occupied, content. He read a lot, kept up on current events, was a master at crossword puzzles (I mean hard ones) and Sudoku. His mind was sharp, but his stamina waned, and so he eventually lost the will to do what he once thought he could do some time during his life.

Don’t let this happen to you. I’m primarily writing to you writers out there, but this could be applied to any dream or goal of anyone reading this. What’s the worst that could happen if you gave it (whatever “it” might be) your all? You might decide you don’t like it as much as you thought you would. You might fall flat on your face and tell yourself you’ll never do that again. So be it. That happens to me all the time. It happens to all of us all the time. But there’s something about that very special dream that makes us gun-shy. Hate it, fail it, but please, never, ever, ever sell yourself short by not trying it.

My dad didn’t completely give up on his dream, and I realize that the writing he did do was probably enough for him at that stage in his life. I’m happy for that; I really am. But I’m sad that the world didn’t know Arden Edwin Harper as the author of the fine work he produced.

Maybe I’m looking for something to hold on to now that he’s gone. Or wishing some accomplishment on him that he really never wanted that badly. Could my hearing him talk about writing a book have been a frivolous comment he made that I just took too seriously? Could his writing that book-length manuscript without having it actually published been enough for him? I won’t know this side of Heaven, and by that time it won’t matter.

My father was a fine man. The world will just have to take my word for it that he was also a fine author. Because he was.

Source: authorculture.blogspot.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Reality Check for Authors … What Were You Thinking?

Leave a reply

I’ve often said that authoring can be (and is at times) a lonely number. When you are hunkered down, the less “outside” noise, the better. When you are wondering,

What was I thinking when I thought (and told everyone) I could write a book?

… it can be a scary thought. When you are taking on the role of publisher, it could be your Holy Moly moment.

Those of us who are long-in-the-tooth in the publishing world get all those feelings, thoughts and experiences. And one thing we all know, is that YOU are not alone. Ever. There are gazillions of authors and authors-to-be who go through those same moments. What was I thinking …

I’m a HUGE supporter of creating an Author Inner Circle. An AIC that serves as a trusted advisory board … just to you. Your AIC knows you, what your book is about, helps shape your publishing plans, and acts as a reality check.

Throughout the publishing journey, authors need feedback, reality checks and plain old-fashion butt-kicking. And authors need a little kindness. Few think about putting together an “official” type of board to serve in the feedback/reality check/butt-kicking honors. An Author Inner Circle … a type of Advisory Board. Do you have one? Have you thought about creating one?

Who Belongs in Your Author Inner Circle?

It’s a new year. How about creating yours? Your Author Inner Circle … trusted colleagues, friends, and always individuals who have “been there, done that.” Most likely, Mom, Dad and your siblings are not included. The exception would be that they are experienced in publishing on their own—otherwise, you take a pass on them.

What you want are individuals who “get it” … they have an inkling of what is going on in the publishing business. They are also someones who:

  • have a kaleidoscope of business experience;
  • are connected with others;
  • have a sense of humor;
  • will say it as it is;
  • will call out the elephant in the room (which could be you);
  • love to brainstorming and bounce off-the-wall ideas around;
  • move you to action;
  • get what social media marketing is about;
  • will embrace your Vision for your book and where you want to go with it.

That’s a lot of someones … individuals who rarely will encompass all the ingredients as a single person.

Here are my nine someones that can make the difference between success and failure in your publishing endeavors:

  1. You want someone who has got an inkling of what is going on in the publishing business. We all know publishing is in a combo evolution and revolution. Who is out there in the midst of it?
  2. You want someone who gets your Vision for your book and where you want to go with it. She or he gets it; gets you; and becomes your cheerleader. The passion you have and amount of time, energy and money you invest in your commitment to your book project is understood and supported.
  3. You want someone who is connected with others and opens doors. Yes you do—someone with a phone call, text, or email request can get you to a source—someone who knows someone else that can smooth your way or offer assistance.
  4. You want someone who has a kaleidoscope of business experience. Absolutely—one of the key failure factors in the authoring/publishing business that most authors don’t recognize. This person gets a P & L, understands contracts and negotiating. If he or she knows publishing, it’s a bonus.
  5. You want someone who loves brainstorming and off-the-wall ideas. Eccentric, a tad wacky—you name it, this person walks to a different tune … most of them you don’t get, but once in a while, your unique and odd-ball someone hits it out of the park.
  6. You want some who gets social media marketing. But there’s a catch, this person has to be able to articulate knowledge/concept/game plan in your mother tongue what he or she is saying and you understand it. It doesn’t mean that you are going to be the full time implementer of what social media you are creating and using. For me, I write mine—but I don’t push it out. I have someone on my team that does that task daily.
  7. You want someone who has a sense of humor. Not only can authoring and publishing be lonely at times as you tunnel yourself into the completing of your book—there are booby traps along the way. Being goofy can be a good thing.
  1. You want someone who will say it as it is and not side-step any elephant in the room, including you. Let’s face it; we all get stubborn at times; quite myopic in the author paths we get into our head. You need a reality checker. Who is out there and has the guts to tell you that you are off your authoring/book rocker?
  2. You want a “Go-Go-Go” person who gets you into action. No butt-sitting allowed or procrastination allowed.

As you start to build this team of individuals, take little steps. You may instantly know who will fill several of the slots I suggest. You may have other categories based on your genre that need to be added. Some, you will interact with one-on-one via phone, in person, or an online platform. Some, you might gather over Zoom, Go-to- Meeting, Skype or other online video mediums. And some may be let’s get together for breakfast or lunch.

This is a time I will say to you, just do it … it’s a new year for you and your publishing.

By Judith Briles
Source: thebookdesigner.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Kill Perfectionism With This One Practice

Leave a reply

It can feel impossible to know where to start writing.

We can become paralyzed by fear, worrying our words will offend or bore readers, or worse, that we’ll never have any readers at all.

If we jump in, we might quickly find ourselves nose-deep in all the complications of story writing, tangled in plot, character development, and dialogue tags. Or a Google search might drown us in writing advice, suddenly flinging us into an identity crisis — who are we, why do we write? Are we plotters or pantsers? How can we even know the difference? *hides under desk*

This isn’t just a problem for newbies, either.

The Story of a Perfectionist Writer

Despite having been a published nonfiction writer for over a decade, when I wanted to branch into fiction writing, I had no idea where or how to start.

As a planner, it made sense to me to begin with an outline. I started there, but pretty soon I became bogged down in perfectionism, trying to think the whole story out before beginning to write it. The story screeched to a halt.

I’d heard many stories are character led, whatever that meant, so I created a character; a gruff, bristly cowboy, leaning up against a barn, with a cigarette smouldering between his thick fingers. Unfortunately for him, that was all the depth I could give him without the context of a story. Years later, when I’d think of him, he’d still be standing there, smoking that same cigarette, isolated and alone without a plot to live in. Poor guy.

My solitary efforts yielded nothing, so I read. And researched. And listened to podcasts and watched videos. (A perfectionist’s fancy way of procrastinating.) In the swirl of information, the identity crisis hit. Who was I? Why did I want to write fiction? Was the ability inborn, or could I learn it?

Pretty soon I was convinced fiction writing was too complicated for me.

The Advice That Transformed My Writing

Finally I invited my friend for coffee and to beg for advice. She’s an avid fiction author who pumps out at least one book a year and has thirty titles to her credit, so I knew she’d have some excellent insight.

“How on earth am I supposed to do this??” I asked her. “How does one create a story?” I leaned in, eager for the key to my fiction-writing success.

She shrugged. “You just write it.” She said it matter-of-factly, like it was as obvious. To me, it was obviously wrong. That’s what I’d been trying to do, and it wasn’t working.

“Just write it? I can’t do that. I need a plan.”

“No you don’t. I start most stories without a plan. As I write, the story comes.”

“What?! That’s insane!”

She shrugged again. “You might end up writing a whole lot of crap, but if you keep going, you find the good stuff.”

I didn’t buy it, but let the advice percolate. Writing was too difficult a task to risk “writing crap.” I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Then, in the book Outlining Your Novel, K.M. Weiland proposed two words that changed my life: “What if?” I realized finding the answer would necessitate a lot of dead-end scenarios. I would have to jot down a lot of crummy ideas and terrible plots before I came up with the best one. I would have to allow those incomplete, embryonic, never-to-see-the-light-of-day ideas out onto paper.

That’s when I realized my friend’s advice was true. I would have to “just write it.”

That morning, I sat to write a fiction piece. Anything. It didn’t matter. I was just going to make it up on the spot. Even if it was crap, I decided, it would at least blunt the perfectionism that had held me back.

Inspired by a painting, I wrote one line. Then another. I kept adding one after the other without knowing anything about who was in the story or why. It was a freeing exercise to “just write.” What resulted was a mediocre story that had a reasonable plot and semi-inspiring conclusion.

3 Lessons About Perfectionism From a Writer Who “Just Wrote”

The experience taught me three things:

1. Giving yourself permission to write total crap quiets perfectionism

Perfectionism isn’t necessarily bad. In its healthy state, it can drive us to achieve goals and feel a deep sense of satisfaction as a result. In its unhealthy state, though, it can freeze us with fear or cripple us with self-criticism. That’s the version we need to break free from.

It starts with giving ourselves permission to not be perfect — to write crap.

With that permission firmly in place, it becomes this decision to conduct an experiment, the results of which do not define us or our abilities.

This one, highly effective, low-risk decision can make an effective path through perfectionism. It sure did for me.

2. Permission to write crap unlocks creativity

Creativity is a cautious, tender creature. It hides from anything that might kill it — like the pressure we put on it to be something it isn’t.
However, with the decision to cast aside high-achievement and simply run an experiment, suddenly the pressure to write the next Harry Potter dissipates, and we’re free to let whatever we think of flow onto that blank page.

Permission to write crap unlocks creativity.

“It’s about getting that critic out of the way and immersing yourself in a flow of pure creativity. Do that, and you’re doing well.” Sean Platt, Write, Publish, Repeat

3. To grow in the craft of writing, one must write

Research, reading, thinking, or “letting it percolate” do not a book write. They’re necessary to the process of writing, but they are not the only elements.

Knowing and doing are two different things — it’s the difference between knowledge and experience. One can become knowledgeable about driving by reading books, interviewing the best drivers and car manufacturers, and studying related stats.

When they get in the car, though, the realities of the experience come to life. Hundreds of traffic signs, lights, pedestrians, and flashing ads all pull attention from what seemed like a simple task. Understanding is born.

Sometimes, perfectionism is just a cover for procrastination.

The Secret to Writing Success

Here it is: At some point, every single writer must finally follow these three steps: 1) Place butt on chair. 2) Place fingers on writing apparatus. 3) Write words.

Give yourself permission to do just that, and who knows what stories you’ll create?

What strategies do you use to overcome perfectionism in writing? Let us know in the comments.

Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Encouraging Words for Writers: 3 Essential Reminders for Struggling Writers

Leave a reply

There are a lot of things that stop us from writing. Fear of failure, discouragement, and exhaustion are my big three. Sometimes, what we need to push through those barriers is a reminder of who we are and why we do what we do. We need someone to come alongside us and speak encouraging words for writers.

We need to be told again the stories that have led us to the place we are now.

3 Encouraging Reminders for Writers

On the wall of my office, I have a collage of quotes and pictures that have inspired me. Each quote represents a story from my past. I read over them whenever I need a boost of encouragement (which is at least once a day).

These encouraging words for writers are a wonderful source of strength for me. Many of the quotes on the wall are from friends and family who had the right words for me at the exact right time.

Here are three I lean on regularly to get me through rough patches.

1. “Work the process.”

My mentor said this to me at a moment when I was completely lost.

Things at work were falling apart. Several projects had started to break down at the same time, another staff member had verbally attacked me in a staff meeting, and I was being accused of something I didn’t do. On top of that, the organization I worked for was in financial trouble and I wasn’t sure we were going to turn things around.

I called my mentor to ask for help because I had no idea what to do next. We sat in an empty hallway in the basement of the building. It was late and everyone had gone home. Leaning against the painted cinderblock wall, I explained to him in detail everything that was going wrong and all the extravagant plans and drastic measures I had designed in my head that would turn things around.

After hearing me out, he said, “Work the process.” I asked him to explain.

“Don’t do anything extravagant. Don’t take drastic action. There are processes in place. Work the process.”

Often as a writer, I work myself into a dark place. I begin to feel like my writing is worthless. I grow discouraged and lose focus. I find a thousand things to do instead of writing the next chapter.

When I get in that head space, I remind myself to “work the process.”

There is a process to my writing. I write after my family has gone to sleep. I sit at my kitchen table with my laptop, a drink, and a notepad, I skim the last chapter I wrote, I look at my outline, and then I write the next chapter.

When life is hard and I don’t feel like writing, the process keeps me focused and moving in the right direction.

It’s not extravagant. It’s not drastic. It is mundane and routine; and when things get hard, that’s exactly what we need.

2. “No one is going to die on the table.”

I wasn’t prepared for the pre-med course load I took on my sophomore year of college.

My freshman year, I’d been a music major. Since the classes were mostly about performing, I’d been able to wing it with a minimal amount of preparation. Instead of working hard in the practice rooms each day, I learned to play racquetball and became a regular on the basketball court.

Predictably, my disdain for practice made it clear to me and my teachers that I wasn’t going to cut it as a musician, so I decided to pursue one of my other interests, science. While I loved the classes, I was not prepared for the amount of studying that was required.

By the time I got to my midterms, I was way behind in multiple classes.

The night before three tests, a group of friends who were in class with me came over to study. We blew through our biology and chemistry notes in our first three hours together and I felt good about my prospects in the morning.

A little before midnight, we began studying for physics. I hated physics. Sitting at my small round kitchen table, my friends rattled off formulas, made up problems for one another, and answered practice questions with ease. I, on the other hand, was completely lost.

After an hour and a half of trying to “get it,” I excused myself from the study session, claiming I needed to get something from my bedroom. Hiding in my closet so no one could hear me, I began to cry. I called my dad and explained through tears what was happening. I was sure I was going to fail the test and it was too late for me to do anything about it.

After calming me down, he said several things to me that night that have stayed with me. One of which was, “Listen, if you fail tomorrow, no one is going to die on the table.”

Dad was a surgeon who primarily saw high-risk patients. When someone got to him, it was life-or-death. If he messed up or came to work unprepared, someone might literally die on the table.

The words he gave me that night were a fantastic reality check that I’ve used again and again. They’ve helped me take risks and push through fear. When my fear of failure begins to slow me down, I remember sitting in my closet and getting a good dose of perspective from my dad.

Through the years, fear has stayed with me. It is the greatest enemy of writing. Many nights I will sit down to write a chapter and hear fear in my ear whispering, “You’ve got nothing. You’re not a real writer. Stop kidding yourself. You’re going to fail.”

When that voice comes around, I remind myself of the stakes. If I write a terrible chapter, no one is going to die on the table. I’ll just erase it and try again tomorrow.

Having a refreshed perspective helps me move through fear and write.

3. “The tension is good.”

It was after midnight. My friend and I were alone on the second floor of a bar. On the table in front of us were stacks of meeting notes and ideas we’d sketched out together over the years. We were drinking coffee, talking about a non-profit we were both serving, and dreaming up ways to solve all the organization’s problems.

There were some amazing things happening in the organization. We were seeing real breakthroughs in the community we served and people were being helped.

At the same time, we could feel the organization hadn’t reached its full potential. We knew what it could be, but we weren’t sure how to get it there.

We thought that maybe, if we tweaked this one process, or increased our effort in this one area, or redirected resources to this other direction that we would see a breakthrough.

Caught in the tension between the good we were doing and the good we wanted to do, I began to complain. I whined about wanting the future to arrive already, and how I didn’t want to have to wait for changes to take hold.

After I finished another pointless rant, I remember my friend smiling at me and saying, “Don’t rush it. The tension is good.”

He was right. If we had made the changes right away that I wanted to make, we would have failed. Things that looked like a good idea at that moment were actually terrible ideas. Moving slow and making careful and strategic changes helped us see different paths and solutions that weren’t immediately apparent.

As a writer, I often find myself with a problem I can’t fix easily. For me, it usually has to do with plot. I’ll work myself into a hole in my story that I can’t get out of.

Weighed down by exhaustion, my gut tells me to just ignore it, hope readers won’t notice, and rush to the end. I tell myself, “Just publish it and move to the next one.”

Unfortunately, I’ve learned the hard way that readers always notice.

The phrase “the tension is good” has served over and over again to remind me that some problems need to sit. They can’t be solved right away. Instead, they need to be thought through because marinating in the tension will produce a better result.

Encouragement for the Journey

Those are three of the memories that bring me inspiration and encouragement. When I’m stumped in my writing, overwhelmed, afraid, or all three at once, these encouraging words for writers remind me that I will make my way through.

No, my writing isn’t perfect. But the process works. No one is going to die on the table. And the tension is good.

When you hit a rough patch, what encouraging words for writers do you lean on? Let us know in the comments.

By Jeff Elkins
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing