by Joe Bunting |
1. Write.
2. Keep writing.
3. Whenever you think about it, write.
5. If you’re angry, write anyway.
6. If you’re feeling insecure, write anyway.
7. If you’re depressed and think no one cares about you or your writing, write anyway.
4. Don’t work for hours on the perfect zinger to respond with. Work on your writing.
8. If they convince you that you’re not a real writer, write anyway.
9. If you need to delete their comment, do it. Then go and write.
10. It doesn’t matter what they said or why they said it or who they are. It only matters that you write. So get to work.
by Joe Bunting |
Let’s take a look at the numbers:
– There are currently over 181 million blogs.
– Three million books were published in 2011. That’s one book for every 100 or so people in the US.
– The chances of getting your book published traditionally are somewhere between 5% and .1% (1 in 20 to 1 in a thousand).
– If you give up on a traditional publisher and decide to self-publish, the average self-published book sells somewhere between 20 and 100 copies.
For the aspiring writer, those are not great numbers to hear, and in the midst of that, you might wonder, “Does my story really matter?”
by Katie Axelson |
Did you see them? Or did they go unnoticed? The person in the car behind you. The people at the table beside you.
by Joe Bunting |
If you are a writer, you know about the voice inside your head that talks non-stop while you try and work on your writing. It may give you advice on how to fix what you just wrote. It may tell you you’re no good at writing and that you should take up a different hobby. It may just distract you.
This voice is your Inner Editor. Here are four ways to control your Inner Editor and keep it from distracting you as you write.
by Joe Bunting |
I’m not the biggest fan of driving. Once I hop into the car; the road needs my undivided attention, my heart beats anxiously, and I fear the busy traffic around me. Still, I know it’s a fact of life that I need to drive, so I do it.
I also drive because I know the importance of practice.
Driving a car is much like the art of writing. It takes a lot of practice transform our weaknesses into our strengths. You don’t become a safe and confident driver overnight, you have to practice, practice, and practice some more.
Let me illustrate my point by explaining why I now have an embarrassing scratch on the back of my car.
by Joe Bunting |
A friend of mine is in the middle of writing a short story and he wants to give up. He has 2,000 words and none of it makes sense. He doesn’t know what he’s writing about. He doesn’t know why he’s writing in the first place. He’s lost faith.
Have you ever felt like this? I know I have.
How do you finish when you want to give up? How do you push through when you don’t know what you’re story is about?
