When you measure your type of writing against someone else’s and it doesn’t add up, well, you’re bound to feel inferior, and that inferiority manifests in the favorite of all phenomena, Imposter Syndrome. Continue reading Faking It (Also Known As Fiction Writing)
They’re all right. Every single person who told you that writing was going to be full of obstacles and challenges and rejections, every single one of them is right. Writing is hard and you should be able to fall back on other skills, and yeah, you probably will be broke, at least for a while.
But the truth of it is, writing – the whole writing process – that’s the easiest part. Continue reading The Business Balance
Write drunk, edit sober. The reason for this is that writing is a hell of a lot easier than editing. You don’t need your wits about you to write. Writing is the easiest part of the whole process. You lay everything out on the table and then, later on, you can deal with all the issues.
Well, now it’s later on, and now I have to deal with the issues.
Continue reading Write Drunk, Edit Sober (And Then Start Drinking)
From the outside, writing doesn’t look too hard. After all, I spent eight to ten hours a day on my computer, doing the thing I love most in the world. What could be difficult about that? I get to research unique and interesting things, and tell the stories that I want to tell. It’s the dream job.
And it is the dream job, but it’s sure as hell not an easy one. Continue reading Damn Hard Writing
Plotters plot and pansters fly by the seat of their pants. I have done both in many genres of writing, including both fiction and nonfiction, and let me tell you–I will never be a pantser. Continue reading Fly By the Seat of Your Pants
When writing is your passion and not your job, maybe it’s still fun and cool to cuddle up in an oversized plush couch and watch the world out a rainy window, but when you’re trying to run a business and meet deadlines and manage several manuscripts at once, writing at a cafe is tantamount to doing surgery on a rollercoaster. Continue reading The Cafe is Not the Office
I used to think I could research my books as I went. I used to delve into plot and character development and setting and think ‘I’ll get to that later’. I used to believe that research was secondary to the fundamentals of writing a story.
I used to be very, very wrong.
