by Chelsea Cain (um, who else?)
Writing tips are like mini skirts.Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they make you cry, and sometimes you can reuse the material and sew yourself a pillow or something. Maybe a few of these will work for you.I hope so. Personally I think you’d look very nice in a mini-skirt.
1. You won’t make a living writing until you learn to write when you don’t want to. A lot of writers wait for the muse to seize them. These writers don’t get much done. Here’s a secret: writing is not always fun. If it is, you’re doing it wrong. I love to write just about more than anything, but there are times I have to force myself to sit down and work. I want to play with my daughter, or watch a movie with my husband, or go outside on the nicest day of the year. But if writing is going to be your job, you have to treat it like a job. And that means that you don’t get to take the day off just because you’re “not feeling it.” This is what separates the writers who make it from the writers who don’t. Get your butt in your chair, and make yourself write. Do it every day.
2. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Don’t be afraid of clichés. Write the book you want to write. If you want to write about an alcoholic cop with an ex-wife and an insubordination problem, do it. If you want to write about a haunted hotel, or a woman who finds herself through a journey, or a teenage amateur sleuth – well, awesome. Your book will be different because you’re the one writing it.
Tag: writing tips
Conquering Your Fears So You Can Write
…because writing’s all that counts in this life anyway…um, if you’re a writer.
Fear and Focus – by Charlotte Rains Dixon
We don’t always think of fear and focus at the same time, but there’s very good reason to pair them.
Focus. It’s what we all desire, what gets the writing done. Because the words don’t go on the page without it.
Update About Amazon Studios
From the amazingly wonderful blog written by John August, who knows this stuff better than anybody. Wow.
Amazon Studios at AFF
Amazon Studios has been a much–discussed topic on both the blog and the podcast. Last week at the Austin Film Festival, the company made a presentation explaining how they work with screenwriters.Reader Mike attended and took notes, which he generously offered to write up.
A little bit about my background: I started out working at a production company as an intern and as a reader, kept working at writing and eventually got representation from a manager and an agent. I’ve had scripts go out and I’ve done the studio water bottle tour a couple of times, but have yet to earn a single penny as a writer.
I consider myself in that grey, ugly pool of zombie writers: Part alive, but mostly dead inside.
Peggy Bechko on “Too Much Work & No Play for Writers”
…Yep, we wanted Peggy Bechko back so badly that we couldn’t wait for her next contribution and swiped this baby right off Peggy’s wonderful blog:
Hey, you, are you working too much?
Yep, you. Yes, I know, you’re working a job and you just have to write so you have to juggle both and that means working…a lot.
Jack London Wanted to Mentor You
So once upon a time the writer of Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, White Fang, and tons of other books and stories was just another guy who wanted to write. Here’s his view of what he did to make himself into something more:
Call of the Wild: Jack London’s Advice on Honing Your Creative Craft – by Scott McDowell
Sometimes its hard to know where to start. In John Barleycorn, Jack London’s vivid memoir, he describes a predicament familiar to many an aspiring artist: “My difficulty was that I had no one to advise me. I didn’t know a soul who had written or who had ever tried to write. I didn’t even know one reporter.”