Stop Whining and Write – Advice from Nora Roberts
- Stop making excuses and write.
- Stop whining and write.
- Stop fucking around and write.
- I take my own advice.
21
Nov
Tag Archives: Writing
05
Sep
Four Rules for New Writers
First: write.
That’s it. Write. You’ll need to learn a lot, but writing is a craft as much as an art – you’ll learn a ton by just writing.
Second: keep writing.
The most common “mistake” prospective writers do is giving up. Learning is difficult. It can be hard. There will be parts where you feel like everything you do is crap. It might even be crap. Read More
06
Jun
Should You Give Up Writing?
Ever felt like you want to tell stories, but can’t? That you’re sitting down, starting something great, all those characters dancing in your mind, but two weeks and fourteen failed starts later, you have nothing to show for it?
Maybe you like the idea of writing, but you’re having trouble doing the work. Maybe you feel, or have heard, that writing is work, and it should feel like work, and you’re not liking that feeling.
Maybe it’s making you doubt whether you are a writer at all, or should be one, or should give it all up and try out for that competitive TV-watching team you’ve heard about.
No, you shouldn’t. Because you, and all those more-or-less well-meaning people on the internet, are looking at writing the wrong way. Read More
25
Apr
BITS – The Curse and Bane of Creatives
Have you ever had a case of BITS? That’s “Big Important Thing Syndrome.”
That’s when we attach a lot of importance to something, which then brings with it all manner of strange and destructive critters, from plain fear to insidious perfectionism and delusions of grandeur. Which completely destroys our creative ability.
The solution? Do something that moves you forward that is completely NOT important. Read More
20
Apr
Move Teardown: Lucy (Thriller-Superhero-Art flick)
TLDR: Lucy, a super-sexed girl-next-door, goes on the ultimate power fantasy, as justified by a 13-year-old boy’s rule-of-cool in a movie that fails due to motivational mismatch.
I don’t usually do this, but I’ll review a movie that didn’t work to show why. Also, because otherwise I’d have lost an hour of my life (I skimmed a lot through all the obvious parts).
Synopsis: Lucy is an exchange student in Taiwan, where she is tricked into delivering a case of drugs to a big drug lord. There, she is abused and cut open to become a drug mule with a bag of drugs hidden inside her abdomen.
So far, the movie is a standard thriller: Lucy is forced into a bad situation, the situation gets worse, and everything she does to stay alive and escape is completely inadequate. She’s running while tied to a wall (literally). If you can forgive the cross-cut hunting and lecture scenes, it’s actually a fairly standard setup with some nice cinematography.
But then things change. Read More
18
Apr
Why Kickstarter is the Place to Be For Writers – and Why You’ll Profit From It!
TLDR: The increasing popularity of Kickstarter is a death-knell for traditional publishing, but great news for writers, both new and established, who’ll get access to better-paying and faster publishing options.
People, especially new(ish) writers, keep complaining that Brandon Sanderson’s kickstarter is going to hurt writers, publishers, and book-loving aliens from Mars.
I’ve seen arguments that it will make publishers less willing to pay writers, less willing to gamble on new writers, and less willing to publish non-best-selling books.
That’s great news!
Check this: the big trad publishers are dying. Have been for the past 30 years, and it accelerated as online shopping accelerated. Read More
11
Apr
Advice for When You Want to Quit Writing
There are times when you look at a book by your favorite writer and despair. That your writing stinks, and that you’ll never be that good. That there’s no point in continuing. You’ve been doing this for months, or years, or decades, and you’re still not good enough.
I feel you pain – but there’s an easy explanation. Read More
04
Apr
Dealing With Rejection – It’s Not You, It’s Them!
I have, at the time of this writing, received 829 rejections.
I’ve also sold 59 stories, most of them to pro-paying magazines, with another 9 out on submission right now.
If you crunch the numbers, you’ll see that I’m getting a 93,4% rejection rate. Which is actually quite good.
Let me explain. Read More
31
Mar
It’s Never Too Late! – 99-Year-Old WWII Vet Publishes First Book
This goes into the “inspiring” file: a 99-year-old veteran of the US Marine corps bought his first computer at age 95, and has now published a children’s book.
“Most of us have a bucket list that we never have time to do, until life presents us with spare time, and that is what happened to me.” – 99-year-old first-time author Sam Baker
28
Mar
How to Become a Bilingual or Trilngual Writer
English is my third language, and the one I most prefer to write in.
That’s because it’s the language that I’ve read the most in, and the one I’ve practiced writing in the most.
It wasn’t always like this. Read More