by Guest Blogger |
I bumped into writer friend at the library and immediately saw something was wrong with him. He looked ghostly white and on the verge of tears, though he was usually quite stoic.
“What happened?” I asked.
He shook his head, looked away, then whispered, “I just asked her—tell me what you think.”
That’s when I noticed the pages clutched in his hands. His manuscript. It was just a few pages, but they were clearly bleeding red.
After coaxing the story from him, I learned he’d given the first chapter of his first-ever novel to an experienced writer with no instructions. She gave him back a line-by-line edit, listing everything wrong with his story.
He quit writing, which is a shame because he has talent. Although the experienced writer should have had more mercy on this newbie, he should’ve been clearer in his critique needs to avoid miscommunication.
Don’t make the same mistake.
by Guest Blogger |
Why are some writers five, ten, or twenty times more productive than everyone else? Like superhumans, they somehow juggle the chainsaws of everyday life, yet still manage to consistently finish book after book while others struggle.
by Guest Blogger |
Good writers can express themselves thoughts. But with so much flowing through the chambers of the mind, it is not easy to concisely find just the right words to express and idea or emotion, or to narrate action.
What phrases convey to the reader exactly what the writer is thinking? How do you express yourself while keeping your reader following a logical description, dialogue or argument?
by Guest Blogger |
Creative as we might be, sometimes our imaginations dry up.
Our scene might happen in a coffee shop, but the coffee shop in our heads is ghostly. In it, people don’t talk, don’t move, don’t even have faces!
And that, well, is creepy.
by Guest Blogger |
Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.
—Maya Angelou
In his book, 10 Steps to Becoming a Writer, Joe Bunting that the first step to is to publish your work.
I agree with him, but often our emotional experiences can block us from publishing. When we approach publishing, we often experience doubt, fear, insecurity and all the other difficult feelings that come with opening ourselves up to feedback from others.
