What do Lewis Carrol, Mark Twain, and Dr. Seuss have in common? They all wrote under a pen name.
Those are some pretty big names, so it really makes a writer wonder: Should I use a pen name?
If you’re not finishing your writing, it’s because of fear. Fear is far more influential than we like to think. We like to believe that we’re not succumbing to fears because we are good at goal-setting, or perhaps we stick to a writing schedule of some kind.
Yet fear is insidious. It is subtle. It speaks with voices you can’t hear, and unless you weed those voices from your psyche, they will forever impede your writing dreams.
Here’s how to overcome your fears and finish your writing with confidence!
By the end of this post you will be using an excel spreadsheet.
Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I understand that you’re on this blog to get away from you day job. I get it. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method— I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too.
Do you want to be a writer but are hesitant to try because you haven’t taken any writing classes? Wondering if you need to have a degree in order to write?
Guess what? You don’t have to have a writing education to be a writer.
I don’t have one and have been published dozens of times. And today’s interviewee is the same way.
At some point in your writing process, you’re going to need to put your work into the hands of others. Beta readers and professional editors should be an important part of your writing team. (And yes, writing is a team sport!)
I often get a lot of questions about the revision process, namely how to get beta readers and when to hire a professional editor. Our interviewee this month is here to answer those questions!
How do you live “a writer’s life”? By writing! (And editing, and publishing, and marketing. But we’ll get to that.)
But sometimes (okay a lot of the time) it’s hard to fit writing into our busy, busy lives. Kids, school, work, house maintenance, relationships . . . We’re pulled in a million directions every day.
The key to fitting in anything important is to find the time and protect that time.
