writing – Page 9 – WordServe Water Cooler

September 2, 2013August 26, 2013

Writing Powerful Sentences

On my writing journey, I spent a lot of time studying the big-picture concepts of writing, suchas story arcs, conflict and character, but then I began to notice some smaller scale aspects. A phrase or a small block of text would sing out to me as I read. For a while, I logged the best examples in an Excel spreadsheet. I noticed that my favorite books usually had a lot of these winning sentences.

What made them so powerful? Just as I had studied scenes and novels to see what made them successful, I began to study phrases and individual sentences to see what gave them that singing quality. All of them had one of the six qualities below. Most had several of them.

The Five Senses

The authors didn’t just use the senses. They bathed the words in sight or touch or taste (often using more than one sense at a time) until I could smell the burning gasoline or feel the dried leaves crumble between my own fingers.

“There was a sizzle and steam and a sound like a thousand muskets firing. Then the sheets of ore began to fall.”

– Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks

Emotion

The phrases usually occurred in the context of an emotional scene, but then a few well chosen words would zing the emotion all the way home.

“I had only human comparisons for such a look. Caesar and Brutus. Jesus and Judas.”

– The Host, Stephenie Meyer

Metaphorical Language

The authors utilized metaphors or similes, fresh images that made general ideas tangible and ordinary actions captivating.

“The prayer seemed to find shelter in the morning breeze, as though chanted by the leaves overhead.”

– Book of Dreams, Davis Bunn

Rhythm

Repetition of a word or a sentence structure gave the writing rhythm, almost like poetry.

“Each question would lead to another and another until there was only a man and a woman in a garden and a forbidden tree.”

– At the Scent of Water, Linda Nichols

Forceful, Visceral Words

Even removed from their scenes and sentences, the words were strong, capable of evoking a reaction. I noticed that the writers often used words related to the body (bone, blood, flesh) or to a threat (thunder, electric, knifed). Even when the words were used in a different context (neither related to a human body or a physical threat), they still carried the weight of those associations.

“Her voice was a whip-crack in the silent arena.”

– Taliesin, Stephen Lawhead

Unique

The text twisted the normal way of saying things. The writers clearly dug deep, looking for an original and unexpected way to convey their scene, and the words they found were guaranteed to catch the reader’s attention.

“She had skin the shade of bootleg coffee, and crossing her back were the memories of lashed scars.”

– Harvesting the Heart, Jodi Piccoult

Once I pinned down what gave these memorable sentences their power, it was that much easier to write a few of my own. What about you? Have you found other traits that make a sentence or phrase sing to you?

August 26, 2013August 26, 2013

Being Equipped

Many times, when I meditate on God’s Word, my eyes are drawn to encouraging and uplifting verses like John 3:16, or “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” or “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

And sometimes, as only God can do, He whacks me upside the head with a mackerel as he did during my prayer time the other day when He led me to Proverbs 29:1 (NLT): Whoever stubbornly refuses to accept criticism will suddenly be destroyed beyond recovery.

In the King James Version, this verse reads: He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Not quite as in my face as the NLT. The Old English makes it a little mushier with having to untie the knots in the sentence.

Not the NLT. It’s like stepping on the wrong end of a rake.

When I began writing seriously, the thing I feared most was receiving criticism. I had always been extremely sensitive to criticism. It came from having a poor self-image and being convinced in my mind I could never be smart enough or good enough. My first reaction was to shut down and then, at the first opportunity, I would go off by myself and brood.

Imagine taking this attitude into a critique group.

But God, with His grace and favor and wisdom, prepared me. He showed me magazine articles, books, and blogs that talked about receiving and giving criticism. He brought me to my first critique group. There I observed a group of people much more experienced than I give and receive critiques in ways that were constructive and encouraging.

Most importantly, through prayer and wise counsel, He showed me, for the first time, how to see the criticism was not about me personally, but about my words.

Sometimes, it’s still hard to make this distinction. The enemy tries to wedge the door open and tell me negative feedback means I’m no good. But God has shown me, no matter what people think of my writing, I am good. I am His child and, as the old saying goes, God does not make junk.

To refuse and reject criticism is to set myself up for failure, to put myself in a situation of not being published, of developing a reputation of being difficult, if not impossible, to work with. This accomplishes several things I don’t want to happen. People won’t work with me or consider my work because I’m not open about improving it. It hurts God because it takes me out of His plan for me. And it gives the enemy a victory because it takes me out of the will of God and opens the door for him to do even more damage, and, thus, for me to be destroyed beyond recovery.

God’s shown me the purpose of the criticism, how it applies through this verse. The feedback is to help me improve as a writer, to develop and refine my craft, to become a better storyteller. To become a better servant of Him by taking my skills to the highest level possible. To walk in obedience and in the fullness of His plan and calling for my life.

After getting my attention in Proverbs 29:1, He led me to this Scripture, a part of a prayer in Hebrews 13:21 (NLT): May he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.

He’s equipped to me write and He’s equipped me to receive feedback and instruction to improve my writing so it serves Him even better.

July 29, 2013July 29, 2013

The Writing Life: A Super Balancing Act

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’m a tad imbalanced. My family might use the word ‘super stressed’, my husband, at times, ‘super crazy’. It’s okay, because I know they love me, and it’s true, I do have a tendency to take things on…in excess. I used to attribute it to the expectation that modern women have superhuman abilities to scale relationships, home, health, career, and all their future hopes and dreams in a single bound, but that’s a cop out. The world has figured out we’re mere mortals, and I’m fairly certain I’ve got my priorities and goals straight most of the time. I’ve come to realize it’s more about me wanting to feel in control. I want to manage all my needs and wants with those superhuman powers. I want to do it all, and I want it done now (or, better yet, yesterday).

Image courtesy of Jeroen van Oostrom/freedigitalphotos.net

I think a lot of writers may secretly be like this. They’ll try to crank out the first draft of a novel with the speed of a silver bullet. They’ll read a seven-book series in as many days. They’ll manage their day job like a star reporter at the Daily Planet, and still make time for their secret (writing) identity. They’ll devote themselves to the needs of their family, friends, and home with the efficiency of an evil genius plotting the destruction of Metropolis (but with better intent, I hope). They’ll pretty much do anything they put their mind to, as long as they focus on it maniacally. As in…like a maniac.

Hey, at least we give it our all, right?

Image courtesy of Elwood W. McKay III/freedigitalphotos.net

I’ll keep telling myself that. Meanwhile, failure to achieve balance among the important things in life can become our own personal kryptonite.

Are those of us plagued with this plight destined to live lives of extremes, or will we ever find a nicely balanced, happily-ever-after?

As I think about this, Colossians 3:23-24 comes to mind: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

I wonder, if I stop and remind myself why I’m doing something, will it help me be more selective? If I’d focus on doing some of the same things, but for the right reasons…not for my own vanity or because I feel pressured into it, not because I fear stopping will keep me from ever starting again, not because I’m told it’s what successful people do, and not because it’s supposed to define who I am, would I be more present in the moment? Would there be more joy in the work I undertake? Would I be a happier person overall?

Just maybe it will help me keep the bigger, digitally formatted, wide-screen, blockbuster motion picture in mind. And that, to me, is more powerful than a locomotive.

What about you? How do you stay balanced when you start to feel overwhelmed by the commitment you make as a writer?

July 14, 2013July 7, 2013

Roll the Stone Away

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/

One of my favorite scenes in the New Testament is when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead in John 11: 38-44. “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus tells those around the burial place, a cave cut into the hillside. After the stone is moved, Jesus calls out in a loud voice: “Lazarus, come forth!” The dead man obeys, and Jesus then commands that Lazarus be freed from his burial linens and let go.

Aside from the brilliant drama of the moment, the undeniable demonstration that Jesus is the Lord of life, I am especially fond of this passage because I heard it proclaimed in church at a pivotal time in my own life when I was struggling with direction.

My fifth child was almost a year old, and I knew it was time to move on from having babies.

But move on to what?

As a full-time stay-at-home mom, I’d devoted fifteen years to raising my children. About once a year, I managed to produce a Christian magazine article, which satisfied my desire to write. (All my other desires were to get more sleep.) Since I still had a young child, I knew I wouldn’t be heading back to outside employment for at least another five years until she entered kindergarten, and even then, I’d need summers off to be home with my kids. What kind of work could I do, other than answer one of those ads in the back of magazines for someone to stuff envelopes as their own home business?

That’s when I heard the Scripture proclaimed at church.

And it immediately struck me that I needed to roll a stone aside in my own life – the stone of my own excuses that prevented me from committing myself to developing ALL the gifts God had given me.

Because excuses aren’t the same as authentic obstacles.

I didn’t have an enormous, heavy rock to literally push away like the friends of Lazarus had. Yes, I had important demands on most of my time, but I realized that some of those demands were also self-imposed – stones I had placed in my own pathway. With two teens in the house who doted on their baby sister, there wasn’t any reason I had to be the only one to mind the baby for an afternoon, yet I hesitated to lay that responsibility (stone) on my older children. Once I did, though, it was good for all of us – my teens learned new skills in carrying that particular stone, and with it removed from my path, I had several hours a day to develop my writing skills.

One by one, I worked at rolling away the stones of excuses so my writing talent could come out of its cave. When my fifth child left for college last fall, I was sad to see the end of that phase of my life, but so excited to greet the new one waiting for me.

What stones do you need to roll aside to answer God’s call to new life?

June 28, 2013June 27, 2013

Writing Aversion Disorder

I am currently suffering from writer’s block—or, to use a term more descriptive of how it actually feels on the rare instances when it seizes me, Writing Aversion Disorder (WAD), an ailment of much more serious proportions than mere blockage. It’s not just that I can’t think of anything to say or don’t like what I do say or even that the words are there but just won’t emerge from my brain or fingers onto the virtual page. Rather, I’m incapable of even approaching my computer. The thought of writing nauseates me.

As such, I’m late posting this month, which has surely not endeared me to the tireless and underappreciated editors of this blog. We’re supposed to set our posts two weeks early to give them time to look our writing over before letting it loose into the blogosphere. I feel bad about my sloth. I can’t help it, though. I’m in a bad way.

It should be good writing time for me. As a professor, I have summers off, and, with both daughters occupied with faraway internships, I’ve had big writerly plans this summer. I’m right in the middle—the most exciting part, where all the narrative strands start coming together—of a novel-in-progress, and my goal, before WAS set in, was to get ’er drafted by summer’s end.

Now my goal is to do anything but write. Read. Relearn “Minuet in G Minor” and “Für Elise” from my year of piano lessons as a child. String beads from stashes I found in my daughters’ rooms to make gaudy bracelets for myself and them. Play Spider Solitaire on my new phone. (My brother recently clued me in on how to Control-Z back to a game’s beginning to avoid wrecking my win-percentage.) Clean my deceased mother-in-law’s house down the road. (I’m not joking: I spent all day yesterday there, sorting, tossing, soaping, scrubbing.) Weed my garden out in the hot sun.

I was thinking about this problem as I crouched, hands in the dirt, today, and it occurred to me that, while I usually love working in the garden, even weeding, I’m also overcome on occasion by Gardening Aversion Disorder (GAD)—surely related to WAD. So, with no other blog post in view, I decided to examine what triggered my GAD episodes for anything that might illuminate and, ideally, solve my current dilemma.

Here’s what I came up with: I suffer from GAD when tasks or trips have taken me away from the garden for bit and, upon my return, everything has gotten out of control. Vegetables need harvesting, many having overgrown their tastiness. Itchy weeds carpet the gravel paths between the beds. Sand fleas have made lace of my eggplant leaves; my bean vines are encrusted in ants; my tomato plants are speckled with big black beetles. I know I have to regain control but don’t know where to start.

The answer to my own question—where to start—is to not ask it in the first place. Don’t look, I tell myself. Just leap! Whatever task I choose, my gardening soul has learned to believe, will be more productive, more creative, than wallowing in indecision.

Maybe I don’t want to write, I speculated, because I’ve lost control and uncertain where to start in reclaiming it. And, indeed, as soon as I thought these words, I knew them to be true. That little lightbulb of insight was all I needed.

Perhaps, I thought—or hoped, or both—I need to quit trying to figure what part to work on next and just do whatever comes to hand.

And somehow, having just that much—that little—of a plan sent me back to my desk to dash off this post and then leap back into story.

May 27, 2013May 28, 2013

Memoir Writing: Scene, Summary, and Musing

What is a memoir? “I had to look up the definition of a memoir before I wrote my entry for this contest,” one writer confessed to me.

“Congratulations!” I responded, acknowledging her award.

This writer’s research paid off. Plus, she chose an inspiring, true story from her life, and she engaged her readers with a meaningful message using creative nonfiction techniques.

Being a judge of the contest entries, I also noticed that some of the other aspiring and experienced writers needed to do a little research before they wrote a memoir. So, I’m sharing here some of what I’ve learned as a memoirist.

My road to memoir writing started with enrolling in a class on writing for publication while in college. But I really didn’t hear the term “memoir” much until I took nonfiction writing classes a decade later.

One of my favorite professors at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Dr. Sally Crisp, recommended a very helpful book on that subject by another writing teacher, Judith Barrington. Barrington describes her book, Memoir Writing, as a “practical guide to the craft, the personal challenges, and ethical dilemmas of writing your true stories.”

Defining memoir. Since I’m knee-deep in writing a memoir with my daughter Tara, I needed a refresher course. Here’s my own memoir checklist.

Focused theme or topic. William Zinsser discusses the memoir in his book On Writing Well. “Memoir isn’t the summary of a life (like autobiography); it’s a window into a life, very much like a photograph in its selective composition” (136).
Narrative. Memoir tells a story about certain people, places, or events from the writer’s personal life.
Reflection. The writer’s thoughts and beliefs about the events are a vital part of the memoir.
Conversation. The narrative voice reflects on her thoughts and feelings in an intimate, conversational, and honest manner.

Creative Nonfiction. The memoir tells true stories using creative nonfiction techniques.

Contains all the elements of fiction.
Moves back and forth in time.
Requires believable dialogue, based on truth.
Switches from scene to summary to musing.

Scene, Summary, and Musing. Musing takes a vital role in the memoir. But scene and summary provide two useful ways to move through the narrative.

Judith Barrington describes the memoir’s characteristics of scene and summary in cinematic terms. I’ve often used photographic terms to describe the editing process.

Summary. Here the writer focuses on the panoramic view. This may include numerous details, but examines the person, place, or event from a distance. For this viewpoint, I imagine myself taking a photo of a sunset or sunrise over a lake with my long-distance camera lens.

Scene. For this macroscopic view, you zoom in for a closer look at your story and focus on a particular point of view or incident. Consider using some dialogue to illustrate your scene or another descriptive device to describe an intimate detail of that moment. In photography, I change my lens and focus for a closer view of a child or the reflection over the lake.

Musing. I visualize this characteristic of a memoir as the microscopic view, zooming in on the writer’s intimate feelings and thoughts. The reflective voice of the writer expresses her feelings and thoughts at the time of the event. She might choose to express her current understanding or the wisdom that she gleaned from her personal experience. For instance, I love to capture the memories by the lake close to my home–the awesome sunrises and the poignant moments with my grandkids. It reminds me to record the stories that matter most to me as a gift for the next generation.

Storytelling. In memoir, the writer tells a true story from her life, using her best creative nonfiction skills. As you examine your memoir for revisions, focus on your areas of strength and weakness. Do you tend to focus on summarizing your story rather than zooming in on some important scenes? Have you reflected on what a certain person or event means to you or what you’ve learned from this experience?

I challenge you to work on the weaker elements of your memoir. Your story will become stronger and even more meaningful, as you examine your scene, summary, and musing.

Photos/KarenJordan

What helpful insights could you offer about memoir writing?

May 24, 2013May 22, 2013

The Memoir and the Robin

I sit in the living room, my laptop in front of me, open, alive, waiting for my fingers to type.

But I don’t. I can’t seem to think of one true word, let alone one true sentence. Papa Hemingway would not be impressed.

Thud… Thud…

My eyes follow the thud to the window that looks out to our chipped blue porch and the Japanese maple in the front yard. Within a month, leaves will bud. Eventually a glorious rust-colored blanket from the tree will shelter the porch.

Thud.

A robin flies into the window. She backs up, bewildered, and returns to her perch on a bare branch of the Japanese maple.

“Oh, you poor bird. I understand. I’ve hit my head against my reflection more than once in my life.”

The robin seems to catch her breath, and she’s off again, flying towards the window, searching for someone in the smudge filled glass. Herself? A lover? What does she want, and why doesn’t she learn her lesson? There’s nothing there for her but a hard, cold surface that will cause her pain.

And still, she flies into the window. Again and again and again.

Thud… Thud … Thud …

I watch her as I sit on our comfy, worn leather couch with a hole in the right seat cushion, the buzz of the laptop the only noise–that, and the recurring thud of the bird.

On writing memoir

As a memoirist, this happens, this hitting my head against a hard surface, when I get too introspective with my work. I am the writer, and the narrator, and the main character, and sometimes my roles mingle to the point of self-obsession and confusion. My desire to be perceived well, and to reach my personal predestined truth in the story turns me into a robin, fixated on my reflection, attempting time and again to break into something bigger than me, but really only hitting my head against a hard surface.

Annie Dillard says that you have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arms, like a drunk, and say, “And then I did this and it was so interesting.”

Thud.

The robin has banged her head against our window for three days. I’ve tried to deter her by closing the curtains and opening the window a bit, but to no avail. She returns every few moments, unaware that if she just shifts her focus there is a whole world to fly into and discover.

If a memoirist’s goal is for people to esteem her, to like her, to want to be like her, it will show in the work. The writing will fall flat, come across as inauthentic, and showy.

No, the memoirist should write for discovery. According to Andre Gide, a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947, one doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

A good memoirist is open to her story’s agenda. She participates with the reader, and diminishes the importance of her role for the sake of the universal truth found in her words.

“On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points,” says Virginia Woolf. I would add that every good memoir has a point outside the visceral domain of the writer starting out. Our job is to bring ourselves and our readers to that point. Instead of a writer playing tour guide, the memoirist should rather find herself on the journey in the words. Then she will be able to fly right and free for discovery, and most assuredly get herself and her readers somewhere she would not have found on her own.

May 20, 2013May 20, 2013

Would You Write A Book Without an Outline?

You probably wouldn’t drive across the country without a map.

You probably wouldn’t cook Thanksgiving dinner without recipes.

Would you write a book without an outline?

The practice of outlining a book in detail takes an enormous amount of discipline. Focusing on the infrastructure of the story is a whole different ball game than writing in free form and letting things evolve as they may. My first book was a result of rambling writing sessions, often resulting in superfluous content which ended up being taken out of the story. Although it was fun to just write and see what happened, it seemed there had to be a more effective method out there, one that would result in a greater yield with less exertion. Most writers have other jobs, and when it comes to writing time, every moment is precious.

Some writing coaches suggest that creating a detailed outline is the most important part of book writing, and the part where most authors struggle. Writers may spend weeks or even months on the outline alone, to provide some frame of reference for how detailed the outline can be. Writing a book is a project, not unlike building a house. There is the foundation, there are the walls, the flooring, the roof, etc. Only when the skeleton of the house is in place can homeowners enjoy working on some of the more aesthetic features of the home – picking out colors, the yard, creating curb appeal, you name it.

A project manager friend who has been intrigued by the writing process asked how my latest book was coming along. Our casual conversation at a wedding evolved into something else when I mentioned being stuck halfway through the book. The project manager asked if she could help me in going back to the drawing board and getting serious about planning it all the way to the end. I started sending her samples of my content and images of people that remind me of my characters. She would go through what I had written so far against our burgeoning outline and provide feedback: “I don’t think the character would say that on page 73,” or “When are the characters ever going to make it to Barcelona? You said that they have been saving up their mileage points for the trip,” etc.

At first I wondered if it had been a little premature to share my work with someone else. She had questions that were not always easy to answer, such as why I chose one title over another. Each time I had to explain an aspect of the story, it helped me figure out how to convey metaphors and messages with much greater clarity. After a few short weeks of this exchange, we finalized the outline. It’s all been downhill from there. Writing to an outline hasn’t seemed restrictive at all. It’s been like driving with a navigational system in the car, so you can better focus on the traffic, the scenery and the passengers.

Writing can be a very solitary profession, but creating an outline is a great opportunity to collaborate with others, should you desire to do so. It’s a lot easier to get someone to read an outline than to read a manuscript of 120,000 words or so. If you can have the feedback given to you in a postive way by someone who can deliver it in a manner that makes you comfortable, then your writing will become that much better for having another pair of eyes review it. Having to discuss and explain your work, your ideas, and your story line can be pretty awkward in the beginning. However, writers have to do it eventually anyway, so why not start from the get go?

Writers, do you sit down and just write, or do you use a more formal approach?

May 12, 2013May 5, 2013

Just Look at Me: Encouragement for the Highly Distractible Writer

When my sons were toddlers, they were so easily distracted (look: a squirrel!) that I often knelt down and gently placed my hands on their cheeks to help them listen.

“Look at me,” I’d say, waiting until their eyes met mine. Then I asked them, “What did Mommy say?”

Lately, I’ve felt God kneeling down, kindly pressing His hands to my cheeks. “Look at me,” He says. It’s not only a call to attention, but to single-minded devotion.

“Yes, Lord, ” I reply, taking my eyes off Facebook, Pinterest–even the Wordserve Water Cooler–and focusing on Him.

I feel Him kneeling down when I get jealous about other writers’ accomplishments; when I spend too much time clicking and too little time praying; when my tendency to compare Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers distracts me from the reasons I write.

Last week, I let Satan discourage me. Look at that author, he said. She’s your age and has written twice as many books as you have. Plus, she has a radio show, and her speaking resume is much better than yours.

I started to get insecure, until I remembered the Lord’s hands on my cheeks. “What did I say?” He asks.

“Just look at me,” I respond.

I get it, Lord, I really do.

However, it’s hard to keep my focus when I am required to use social media for my part-time editing job. Plus, our post-recession world of high technology and low discretionary income means that book publishers’ marketing budgets are shrinking, while editors’ expectations are rising.

Sigh. This business is not always good for a highly distractible author…and yes, the apple does NOT fall far from the tree. (Look: a new webinar on building your tribe!)

I know I’m not the only author who struggles with this. Or at least I hope I’m not. So, let’s lean in and focus on our Parent’s eyes for a second.

“Do you hear what I’m saying?” God says.

When we spend time with Him, and hear His perspective on this crazy profession He’s called us to, we realize that He has uniquely called each of us to a highly specialized path.

I don’t have to be like anyone else. Although God calls me to work diligently at my craft and creatively tell people about my books (not for my glory, but His), I shouldn’t obsess about numbers, lists, or honors. All that leads to a place called “Crazy-ville.” And trust me, I can get there on my own.

My fellow scribes, God is calling me–and you–to be faithful and obedient: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matt. 6:33)

Just look at me, He says, and write what I’ve told you to write. Write out of the overflow of our relationship, and trust me for everything else.

As a friend says, “God’s got this.” We can trust Him. After all, those heavenly hands on our cheeks are nail-scarred…from His scandalous, all-consuming love for us.

May 10, 2013May 2, 2013

The Best Advice I Could Have Given Myself

Country artist Brad Paisley released a song in 2007 titled “Letter to Me,” in which he gives his teenaged self advice for the future. It makes me think about what I would have advised myself thirty years ago when I began my freelance writing career. So, with a tip of my own cowboy hat to Brad, here’s my letter to my younger self!

Dear Jan,

I am you thirty years from now, and I want to give you some advice about writing.

Get a day job. You are never going to be on Oprah talking about your bestseller. (Oprah is a person with a very influential talk show in the future. She has a book club, and Tom Cruise jumps on her sofa. Enough said.) Accept the fact that your writing habit will never financially support you. Fortunately, your husband will, so be sure to say “Yes” when a guy named Tom proposes to you. You’re going to think he’s just trying to cheer you up because your car’s water pump broke down, but he’s serious. DO NOT LAUGH IN HIS FACE, because he will never let you forget it. (Although it will make a great blog post. A blog is …never mind. You’ll find out later.)
No matter what you think, your first and second book manuscripts are trash. Really, they are. It would be nice to just skip writing them altogether to save time and effort, but if you don’t write them, you won’t write your third book, which will find a publisher. Just thought I’d let you know.
You’re going to meet a woman named Belinda. Don’t ever tell her you’ve written a book, because even though she’s going to be one of your best friends, she’s going to drive you crazy with her constant stream of ideas for books SHE wants to write. If she ever brings up that she’s thinking about writing a book, immediately change the subject. (You can thank me later.)
Write a YA romance series about a vampire and a high school girl. Believe it or not, it will sell and launch a publishing trend. I’m serious.
Speaking of serious – stop taking yourself so seriously. There are many, many writers out there. The bad news is that you have to compete with them for contracts. The good news is that the writers you meet will absolutely enrich your life, if not your pocketbook. (Reread #1 above.)
Don’t give up writing. You will get published. You will also get rejections, but that’s part of the package, so get over it and get it out of the way. It will give you more time to write and more confidence in your writing. Writing is your gift, so enjoy it, develop it, invest time and effort in it, and it will reward you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
Finally, if you ever have a chance to buy stock in a company named Apple, you might want to do that.