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Surviving the Newbie Blues

When I was a fledgling writer (and I do mean fledgling), I heard the adage that good writers read–a lot. And being a literary know-it-all with my six weeks of experience backing me up, I scoffed. “Read? Who has time to read? It’s all I can do to write a paragraph without being interrupted by three teenagers or dinner preparations or any one of many other distractions that each and every writer in the world faces.” Poor me. Little did I know back then that I’d condemned myself to Newbieland for as long as it took me to truly understand what writing is all about.

Writing is not romantic, easy, nor is it a profession for the faint-hearted. No one writes alone in a vine-covered garret or the tower of a crystal palace with servants to take care of the mundane things of life–like earning a living if your writing career doesn’t bring in several thousand dollars the first month or so. (That was sarcasm.) Instead, writers spend precious stolen moments honing their craft until life settles down. Maybe that’s when your spouse comes home to watch the kids, or the pizza delivery guy shows up and everyone’s too busy eating their deep-crust pepperoni with extra cheese pizza to pester you, or when the kids go to bed. Maybe it’s early morning or late evening, noon hours, coffee breaks, weekends, and may be, just maybe, it’s not until your retirement years.

My point is that just because I was trying my hand at writing didn’t mean the world would kindly step aside for me to work my genius and crank out bestseller after bestseller. That idea was quashed fairly quickly there in Newbieland where I resided until I’d learned a few hard lessons, including:

1.) The writing field is jam-packed with talented, ambitious people who more often than not–no, make that always–knew a heck of a lot more than I did. Being a newbie was on one hand thrilling; on the other, terrifying, and I admit I often had the Newbie Blues.

2.) Nobody has enough time to write. Nobody. Even the successful writers (and you know who you are, Successful Writers, although I imagine you’re not reading this) who consistently hit the bestseller lists probably have trouble with life getting in the way of their craft. Writing is no different than anything else we want to do in life. We need to make time and space for it.

3.) It doesn’t come easy. Being a new writer means you know enough to know you don’t know enough about being a writer. (Please read that again until it makes sense.) A good share of the time I spent living in Newbieland was spent learning everything I could about writing, and yes, that included …

4.) Reading! Yes, lots and lots of reading. In a moment I’ll list some of the books that have helped me tremendously, but first I want to tell you that reading anything helps to make you better at writing. It finally dawned on me that I wasn’t going to go anywhere with my raw talent. Just as if I had a great serve in tennis, I wasn’t going to hit Wimbledon right off the bat (or racket, as the case may be), I had to get rid of my bad habits and groom the good ones that others had learned before me. And to do that I had to read their advice in books on that topic or simply read the fiction books they’d written. Speaking for myself, I’ve learned more from reading the books of successful and great fiction writers than I could figured out for myself if I’d worked at it until the day I dropped dead. And by then it would be too late, and I wouldn’t give a rip, anyway. There’s just so much to know and to assimilate into your writing until it’s a habit, that not taking the advice of good authors is just plain silly.

Of course there are many other ways to learn. Critique partners, writing groups, conferences, and classes are just some of them. I concentrated on the reading aspect simply because it’s something you can do for little or no cost, and it’s a pleasant experience. No longer do I think it’s outrageous to think writers need to read everything they can get their hands on. I’ve moved out of Newbieland and I’m looking for a niche in Mightjustmakeitland. It’s still a long shot, but I’ll never get there if I don’t try. I hope I see you along the way.

Before I forget … trying reading Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott), Writing for the Soul (Jerry B. Jenkins), or On Writing (Stephen King). There are thousands of other books out there, most of which are no doubt very good, but I’ve read these three over and over. I also read the novels by Jerry and Stephen and Anne’s other non-fiction books. I learn something from each author and each of their books whether they’re trying to teach me or not. They’re that good.

Source: authorculture.blogspot.com

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3 Steps to Complete Your Writing Goals in the New Year

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For the last two weeks I have received emails from over eight different companies offering to teach me how to have a wonderful and amazing year next year. Their premise is that I will have a wonderful year if I complete a goal. Since I am a writer, perhaps I should complete some writing goals.

The companies offer to give me practical advice to assist me. Some of them even offered to give me a certificate of completion when I finished their course. The least expensive offer was close to five hundred dollars.

Today, I will give you my three steps to complete a goal and have a great New Year. And, I won’t charge you five hundred dollars.

3 Steps to Complete Your Writing Goals

I will give you a preview of the three steps. Beware, the next three lines contain spoilers:

Step One: Decide what you want to do

Step Two: Write down what you want to do

Step Three: Do what you wrote down.

1. Decide what you want to do.

Step one may seem simple. The most important word in step one is DECIDE. Yes, make up your mind.

You are creative, right? A writer. You have so many story ideas, which one should you do first?

Pick one. Just one. Work on this idea until it is finished. Focus. Finish.

But first you have to make up your mind. You can never finish something if you don’t start. So for now, make up your mind.

(If you are not sure what you should decide to do, consider these writing goals.)

People cannot hit what they do not aim for.

― Roy T. Bennett

2. Write down what you want to do.

Step two is essential. Well, all three steps are essential. Don’t skip a step.

You have to write down what you want to do.

Don’t rely on your memory. When you wake up the next day and your six cats are meowing to be fed, if you haven’t written down what you want to do, you might never remember. You have bills to pay and cats to feed. If it is not written down, you might not remember what you want to accomplish.

How many pages will you write today, this week? Decide, then write it down. Find a friend who would be willing to receive weekly updates from you. Send them at the end of the week how much you have written.

If you have a goal, write it down. If you do not write it down, you do not have a goal — you have a wish.

― Steve Maraboli

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University of California, after studying two hundred and sixty seven people, discovered you are more likely to complete goals if you write them down or share them with a friend. Seventy percent of the participants who sent weekly updates to a friend achieved their goal or got more than halfway there. But of the people who didn’t tell a friend or write down their goal, only 35 percent made it that far.

3. Do what you wrote down.

Step three is an action step. You do what you wrote down.

You can control your future if you always obey what is written down. Before you go to bed tonight, write down what you want your future self to do. Such as, “Write three pages today.” When you wake up you will see the note you wrote the night before, and you will do what it says.

Last night I had my husband decide what time he was going to get out of bed this morning. First he wrote, “I want to get out of bed at seven.” I had him change it to “I will get out of bed at seven.” Then he signed the statement and I signed it as a witness to his promise. He made up his mind: step one. He wrote it down: step two.

This morning at seven, he hit the snooze button. Dr. Matthews’s suggestion to tell your goal to a friend helped my husband this morning. I opened the blinds, turned on the shower, and ripped off all the covers on the bed. Then he did step three and got out of bed.

The Gift of Writing Goals

In twelve more sleeps it will be the first day of a new year. A day of hope; a day where we can begin again. We can have that feeling every day, but the first day of a new year feels like a gift.

So, as you start your new year, think of the three steps. You don’t have to buy a fancy course. You can write. You can complete your goal of writing a first draft, editing the novel you wrote in November, or writing the story of why you flew to Asia in 1983 with a one-way ticket to Bangkok.

Decide what you want to do, write it down, and do it. I believe in you.

Tell your story.

Do you have trouble completing your writing goals? What do you do to help you complete them? Let us know in the comments.

by Pamela Hodges
Source: thewritepractice.com

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Finding Meaning in Poetry

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We humans are programmed to find meaning in everything. We find patterns where none exist. We look for hidden messages in works of art. We yearn for meaning, especially when something doesn’t immediately make sense.

Of course, art is open to interpretation, and some of the best works of art have produced a fountain of ideas about what they mean. From the nonsensical children’s story Alice in Wonderland to the complex historical fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, we wonder what a story means, what it’s really about, at its core.

Poetry is no exception. When we come across an abstract or vague poem, we look for meaning in it. We might even impose meaning on it.

Finding Meaning in Abstract Poetry

The literary canon is home to countless poems with abstract meaning. One of my favorites is “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by E.E. Cummings.

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

Whenever I read this poem, I see a lot of imagery: bells; the changing of the seasons; people; the sun, stars, and moon. Phrases like “up so floating many bells down” are enigmatic. Cummings takes great liberty with grammar and punctuation, using all lowercase letters and eliminating spaces in some lines, which intensifies the poem’s ambiguity.

But what does it all mean? I can’t be sure. This uncertainty imbibes the poem with a sense of wonder. Each time I read it, the meaning changes ever so slightly. It’s almost an ethereal experience to revisit the poem every couple of years to see what it will be like this time.

Maybe Cummings had a particular idea in mind when he wrote this poem, or maybe he wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. Maybe the poem has no meaning and it’s just a nonsensical romp through language and imagery. I don’t think any of that matters. What matters is the act of Cummings writing the poem and the experience a reader gets from reading it. With a poem like this, each reader probably has a different experience. That’s quite a gift — one poem that can mean different things to different people.

Vague Meaning in Poetry

A poem’s meaning can be vague without being abstract or nonsensical. Consider “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

It’s one of the most famous poems in world, and the lines above are often quoted and interpreted to promote individualism: think for yourself; be your own person; forge your own path. But an earlier stanza says that both roads are equally traveled:

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same…

Did the poet really take the road less traveled? Were both roads equally traveled and only in later tellings of his adventures did one become less traveled than the other? Did the poet believe the roads were equally traveled until the journey was completed? Is the narrator unreliable?

Although the poem is often interpreted to promote individualism, we never learn whether taking the road less traveled turned out to be a good or bad decision. What was the outcome? The reader is left to draw her own conclusions.

Meaning Can Be Clear or Nonexistent

Plenty of poems make their meaning clear. Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” comes to mind:

Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.

The poet then takes a carriage ride with Death, ending their tour at a gravesite. The poem is clearly a statement on mortality and an examination of the big question: what happens after we die? There’s nothing ambiguous or cryptic about this poem. It might prompt you to contemplate the inevitable, but it’s not likely to confuse you or take on new meaning each time you read it.

Meaning in Poetry Writing

Meaning isn’t only found in the act of reading (and re-reading) poetry. Sometimes we start writing a poem with one idea in mind, but by the time we reach the end of the first draft, another idea or theme has emerged, maybe even something surprising or profound. Other times, we might write a poem and realize years later that there are layers of meaning in it; perhaps our subconscious produced something we weren’t aware of at the time the poem was composed.

The very act of writing poetry opens us to the meaning of our experiences and ideas, especially if we’re willing to give up control when we write and let ideas and words flow freely.

Freewriting is an ideal practice for generating enigmatic raw writing material. Sometimes a freewrite produces nothing but junk. Other times a freewrite contains a few captivating phrases, an interesting rhyme, or an unusual idea. Occasionally, if we’re lucky (and do a lot of freewrites), something almost magical emerges: a piece of writing — perhaps abstract, or maybe vague, possibly clear — worth polishing and sharing with others.

Analyzing poetry is always a good exercise for the mind, and searching for meaning is certainly an important part of poetry analysis. We cannot always know if we’ve inferred the correct meaning of a poem — or at least the meaning the author intended — but perhaps that doesn’t matter. If ten people come away from a poem with ten different interpretations, do we think a poem has failed to communicate clearly, or has it done something remarkable — provided ten different experiences from one source?

How often do you find yourself searching for deeper meaning in the poems you read? When you write poetry, how important is it that there’s a deeper meaning? Do you ever write a poem and later discover hidden meaning within it?

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward.com

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4 Movie Quotes Every Writer Needs

Four Movie Moments for Writers

There are lots of movie moments that I hold in my head because they inspire me. Here are four movies and their inspirational quotes for writers that I’ve leaned on this week:

Quote #1

Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying, there’s no crying in baseball!

—Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own

Following a bad play, the coach of the Rockford Peaches, Jimmy Dugan (played by Tom Hanks), yells at one of his players. As he walks away, the player begins to cry. Jimmy turns on the player and delivers this iconic quote.

There lots of things about writing that makes me want to cry. This week, for example, one of my books was given a very honest three-star review that exposed all of the book’s flaws.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know the flaws were there. I knew they were there. I had just hoped no one else would see them. When the critic laid them bare for the world, I wanted to cry.

What I love about the Jimmy Dugan quote is that there is profound truth behind it. Tears may feel good in the moment, but wallowing in them can blind us to truths we need to hear. In writing, just like in baseball, we need to accept our mistakes, learn from them, and get back out on the field and play the next inning.

We can be sad for a moment, but there is work to be done and we are the ones that need to do it.

Maybe it’s not a critic making you want to cry. Maybe you lost NaNoWriMo this year? Or maybe you are dissatisfied with your own work? Or maybe life is making it difficult to find the time to crank out the words.

Whatever the stressor is, just remember the words of Jimmy Dugan. Stiffen your upper lip, look in the mirror, and say, “Are you crying? There’s no crying. There’s no crying in writing!”

Quote #2

In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself.

—Fortune in Rudy

In the movie Rudy, Fortune (Charles Dutton) is a wise groundskeeper and mentor to the movie’s protagonist. In one scene, Fortune finds Rudy (Sean Astin) skipping football practice. When Fortune asks Rudy why he wants to quit, Rudy explains that he quit because he wasn’t going to be able to play in the upcoming game and therefore wasn’t going to be able to prove the world that he had made it.

Fortune responds by reminding Rudy that he has zero talent and shouldn’t even be playing the game. Then he delivers the amazing line, “In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself.”

I’ve published four novels and close to a hundred short stories, and still, I see the achievements of others and wonder when I’m going to become a “real writer.” I envy the money other writers make, the acclaim they get, and the attention from our peers. I envy the speed at which they publish, the advertisements they run, and the podcast interviews they do.

In these moments, I find myself in Rudy’s shoes, feeling like I should quit because the recognition I desire feels unattainable.

It’s in those moments when I need Fortune’s quote the most. I need to be reminded that I don’t do this for the praise of the crowd. The crowd is fickle and their attention is fleeting. Pursuing it is like chasing a snowflake. Even if we catch it, it disappears as quickly as it came.

We can’t work hoping for affirmation from the crowd. We need to do our work and do it well, knowing the only person we need to prove anything to is ourselves.

Quote #3

Do you really want to get him? You see what I’m saying. What are you prepared to do? And then, what are you prepared to do?

—Jim Malone in The Untouchables

In the movie The Untouchables, Jim Malone (Sean Connery) is a streetwise beat cop in Chicago. He is approached by Treasury Officer Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and asked to join Ness’s team that is going to hunt the notorious gangster Al Capone. Malone pulls Ness into a church where they can talk quietly.

Sitting in the pews, Malone asks Ness this iconic question: “What are you prepared to do?” When Ness responds, “Everything within the law,” Malone shoots back, “And then what are you prepared to do?”

While we aren’t hunting down mob bosses, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the difficulty of the task before us. Creating art that is noticed and makes a lasting impact is hard. Few succeed. Even fewer are remembered.

It demands hard work and sacrifice. There will be late nights and early mornings no one will applaud you for. There will be pages and stories and characters you pour yourself into that no one will appreciate. And if you succeed and someone reads your stuff, there will be criticism and rejection.

This is no easy task ahead of us.

We need to remind ourselves of this so that when things get hard, we aren’t surprised. With each barrier we face, we need to keep Malone’s voice in the back of our mind.

We need the old, grizzled voice of wisdom challenging us, refusing to let us be naive. We need the questions, “What are you prepared to do? And then what are you prepared to do?” routinely put to us so that we don’t forget that, though the road is difficult, the journey is worth the sacrifice.

Quote #4

You think we need one more? You think we need one more. Alright, we’ll get one more.

—Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven

In the movie Ocean’s Eleven, after assembling ten members of their team, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) are sitting in a bar watching TV. As a boxing match plays on the screen in front of them, Danny asks Rusty, “You think we need one more?” I love this quote because it reminds me that getting the right team around us is critical to our success.

It is tempting to think of writing as a solitary thing: you and your keyboard alone in an empty room. That image couldn’t be farther from the truth.

While writing does require a lot of isolated work, it can’t be done without a team of people around us. No one makes art alone. We need other writers to bounce ideas off of and give us honest feedback. We need team members to work alongside as we strive together to get our work noticed.

Just this week I listened to an online course presented by Joe Bunting and Ruthanne Reid. Three years ago, I met them when I joined the Becoming Writer community. The impact they have had on my work by encouraging me, giving me feedback, and teaching me what it means to be a writer is priceless. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without them.

I’m glad that when I started this crazy journey, I had Danny Ocean in the back of my mind asking, “Do you think we need one more?” The answer is yes.

The good news is, if you don’t have a group of writers you are working alongside, you can find them right here by joining the Becoming Writer group.

Your Writing Inspiration

Becoming and being a writer is a strange journey. We need to keep ourselves grounded with things that inspire us.

I’ve shared with you four of my inspirational quotes for writers. Now you share a few of yours with the rest of us in the comments. Give us the quote and tell us what about it inspires you.

What inspirational quotes do you lean on to keep you centered as a writer? Let us know in the comments.

By Jeff Elkins
Source: thewritepractice.com

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Tag Archives: inspiration

Surviving the Newbie Blues

3 Steps to Complete Your Writing Goals in the New Year