It’s more important to want to write than to want to be a writer. I find it illuminating that so many people tell me they want to be writers, but almost no one says, “I want to write.” There’s all the difference in the world. To want to be a writer, I think, has to do with fond daydreams about whatever we think a literary life is—awards ceremonies, and attractive book jackets. To want to write has to do with a desk, a computer, and a chair. It’s useful to keep a grip on this distinction.
The writing process? As far as I can tell, it means getting it wrong most of the time. It means looking with dismay at what you wrote yesterday, which seemed so good when you stood up at the end of your writing session. It means rereading a passage you are particularly fond of with dim, sinking dismay as you start to realize it really has nothing to do with your book, and however much you like it, it’s probably going to have to go. It often means putting aside almost every one of your original ambitions so that another, better ambition can take shape. It means, in short, a daily dose of humility.
"
10 New Year’s Resolutions for Writers
- Make time to write every day.
- Create an online presence as an author.
- Complete one piece of writing at a time.
- Read more.
- Find a place to write and make it your own.
- Set deadlines and submit your work.
- If you’re stuck, try a new genre
- Take a course to help you with your writing.
- Connect with other authors and find your community.
- Learn about ePublishing, learn how to market, and sell, your books and yourself as an author.
by Amanda Patterson From Writers Write
A Few of Pixar’s Rules for Telling a Good Story:
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Read the rest. (hat tip to Kottke)
I think the main thing is to not be afraid to fail. You’ll be rejected by publishers. You’ll have days of complete lack of faith in your abilities. But you have to keep coming back. That’s when you know you’re a writer – when you take the failures and appear at the desk again, over and over again.
From Marcus Zusak. So. True.
David Graeber, “Beyond Power/Knowledge: An Exploration of Power, Ignorance and Stupidity” (pdf)
He also says much the same thing in “Revolutions in Reverse,” an essay included in the book Revolutions in Reverse (which can be read in Scribd at the link). I’d been meaning to post a quote from the second source for a while, thanks to Aaron Brady for the actual excerpt above. That last link is a good essay on the recent Rush Limbaugh BS and how patriarchy works and how male privilege is defended by having men like Limbaugh around to keep women’s opinions out of the allowed discourse on the subject. To keep high school boys forever unable to write essays that could relate to the issue of needing hormonal birth control to control ovarian cysts.
(via youthisastateofmind)
We talked about this a lot this year in English. Girls are taught from a young age that we have to connect to what we read, so when we do excercises in class, everyone talks about how they connect to Huck Finn, or to Jay Gatsby, or to Julius Caesar. We connect to all the characters because we have to, because if we don’t then we won’t survive through the years of school.
Boys don’t deal with this. Practically every book or story they encounter from the time they begin school is full of male characters and written by men. So when confronted with female characters of female authors, they don’t know what to do. They feel as if they can’t connect with these characters because of the gender boundaries. As one woman in my class pointed out, “girls have to connect to male characters, but boys don’t have to connect to female characters.” By the time they’re my age, it’s not even intentional: many honestly think that they won’t understand a female character because they have no shared experiences whatsoever.
(via animehrmine)
- Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
- Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
- Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
- Every sentence must do one of two…
102 Resources for Fiction Writers
Are you still stuck for ideas for National Novel Writing Month? Or are you working on a novel at a more leisurely pace? Here are 102 resources on Character, Point of View, Dialogue, …
