by Guest Blogger |
A few days ago I was at TEDx Yerevan, which as always was a very uplifting experience. I’ve been there before, but this time was different because a my life had gone through an important change over the past year.
During coffee breaks and lunch, the most common question asked was, “So what do you do?” At the conference in 2012, when people asked me what I did, my answer was more complicated. I had quit my job and at that point just started writing Highfall—my first novel. Maybe that is why I answered with insecure phrases, such as “I am trying to write,” “I write a bit,” and “I want to be a writer.”
Sound familiar?
by Guest Blogger |
Tabitha King is her husband’s Ideal Reader. In the past decades she has been the first person in Stephen King’s mind while he sat at his desk transforming his ideas into black on white stories.
by Guest Blogger |
Are there times when you want to write something different; to create something special and lasting that readers will find important?
Now, you know as well as I writing something timeless isn’t as easy. I was recently inspired by a book called A Grand Complication: The Race to Build the World’s Most Legendary Watch, by Stacy Perman, a fascinating book about watchmaking and collecting in the early 20th century.
After reading the book, I was struck by the many lessons fine watchmaking can teach about writing. Here are 3 of my favorites.
by Guest Blogger |
Sometimes, the hardest part of writing is the time spent not writing. Can anything good possibly come from waiting? Time is money, right? A precious resource?
If you think about it, the process of writing is pockmarked with periods of waiting. Long, interminable periods of waiting. You wait for ideas to strike. You wait for time to write. You wait for your browser to load your Web history full of research. You wait (sometimes a long, long time) on your brain, to make the connections your characters need to get from Act I to Act III.
Once your long wait is over, and you have a completed work in your hands, read, re-read, edited, revised, proofed and ready to make its way through the creeks and streams of the publishing world to an agent, a publisher, a contest or a magazine. You send it off, breathe a sigh of relief, and you wait. And wait. And wait some more.
How can we make sure the time spent waiting isn’t wasted?
by Guest Blogger |
You’ve been thinking about writing a novel for years now. You’ve had ideas swimming around in your head for as long as you can remember.
You’ve researched the best webinars, workshops, and creative writing degrees. Or maybe you’ve taken some writing courses, read all the “how to” books, and even went to a writing conference.
And after all this, you still don’t feel ready.
