Is It Really Writer’s Block, Or Something Else? by Carol Malone
My friends and associates will always start a conversation with me something like this, “So how’s your writing coming?” or my fav, “When are you gonna publish your next book?”
My friends and associates will always start a conversation with me something like this, “So how’s your writing coming?” or my fav, “When are you gonna publish your next book?”
Here’s where we talk about plotters and pantsers. If you don’t know the definitions – a plotter is a writer who outlines their book before beginning to write it while a pantser writes from “the seat of their pants” with no outline. Kind of like writing from the stream of consciousness. I don’t think a survey has been taken but from what I’ve seen, most writers are plotters. Yet there are many famous pantsers too.
In today’s publishing market, deciding whether or not you need or want an agent can be a challenging decision to make. With self-publishing keeping all of the control in the author’s hands and smaller digital-only presses accepting submissions directly from the author, it can sometimes seem like an unnecessary step. Depending on your career goals, it may be. However, if you choose to follow the traditional publishing route, a good agent can be your biggest ally.
I’m writing this guide as my journey. I am now a third of the way through my 4th book in two years, and have just started my 5th. When I was thinking about it I though it would have been great to have a little step-by-step guide. A guide of someone else’s process, someone else who knew absolutely nothing… like me.
Ahhh, the joys of tags. These are those pesky things writers tack after a dialogue run. They tell the reader who’s talking or what they’re doing, or sometimes they do both. These innocuous critters have stirred up quite the debate in the writing community. I’m sure you’ve heard them, whispering in the corners of the coffee shop or library:
Beautifully crafted holiday romance stories have always been my favourite novels to read: not only during the holiday season, but all year round. I’ve discovered that I’m not alone. Readers worldwide enjoy ‘love under the mistletoe’ stories that evoke sincere emotions and reflect family, heart and home. As writers, we play a part in enhancing the holidays for our readers by taking elements that may not be as magical in real life and making them sparkle on the pages.
Today I gave my classes an assignment: write about a story or event that is significant to you and why it’s significant or memorable. I haven’t seen their papers yet but some of the students told me what they had chosen to write about and these stories were very meaningful to them for various reasons. This just proves what I heard one of my writing heroes, Garrison Keillor, say on the radio show, A Prairie Home Companion years ago: telling a story and figuring out the best way to tell it is “always worth the effort.”
If you visit my blogs you’ll find that it’s been a little while since I’ve written for either of them. I’m a firm believer in writing something every day and would not encourage anyone to put their pen down for a few weeks just for the sake of it.
I think it was the first time that as I writer I really felt out of my comfort zone; it was also the first time I’d ever said, ‘I don’t think I can write this story.
I am a novelist, creative writer, blogger, nonfiction writer, teacher, and book and learning nerd. I fight my own perfectionism all the time. Mostly unconsciously. But I’ve found some ways to handle it consciously...
When editors and critiquers first started reading through my precious manuscripts, I got a lot of “Show, don’t tell,” scrawled across my pages in blood-red ink. And of course, I thought, What the h@#l. What does “Show don’t tell” mean? No one explained it precisely, they all expected me to glean the meaning from the insufficient information they didn’t bother to offer me.
I cheer and whoop and holler for other writers’ success; and when I do, I mean it. I genuinely mean it. But I find myself constantly comparing myself to others and how they are doing. Social media doesn’t help with that. Knowing how many followers and likes and comments etc that others have can give me a false sense of triumph and needless disappointment.
As I grew older I learned to control my visibility – I was visible and outspoken at school, when I knew it would be most valued. But I was never visible when it really mattered – in relationships or in my writing. Being invisible kept me safe. Being invisible kept me safe from criticism and rejection.
We make them like us. We give them personalities with strengths and flaws. Sometimes we need to give them, “fatal” flaws. Having these fatal flaws cause conflict.
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