Don't dream it, be it

[valarltd]

One thing that bothered me about MidSouth Con was the number of people who talked to me about the books they want to write.

Not "have written."
Not "are writing."
But "want to write."

There were some really good ideas in there, including a unique take on time travel. I encouraged every one of them to write it up. Most just sort of sighed and shook their heads. No time. Not enough skills. Not good enough to do it justice.

There is only one way to be a writer: WRITE

Sit down and write the story. It may not be all you dreamed or envisioned.
It may not make you much, or any money.
Write it anyway.

People may not get it.
People may get it and hate it.
Write it anyway.

The story does no one any good sitting in your head waiting for Someday.
Someday when I'm good enough.
Someday when I have time.
Someday when I'm not blocked.
There is no someday. There is today.
You get 24 hours, just like the rest of us.
If you need to write, if it gnaws until you can't see straight and MUST get it out on paper before you go mad, you'll make time.

Harlan Ellison says "If you can be discouraged, you should be."
Poppy Brite reminds us that only 2% of writers make a living at it.
Write anyway.

All of the above is summed up in one word: fear. Being a writer is big and scary. I still feel like Wiley E. Coyote who has run out of cliff when I send a story to an editor.
Feel the fear. Do it anyway.

If you want to be a writer, write.
If you want to be an author, submit.
But don't wait. Tempus keeps right on fugiting, faithful readers. And better a piece you weren't quite ready to handle than one you never started out of fear.

Here endeth the lesson.
(today's sermonette brought to you by the Yew: Perseverance leads to achievement)

Comments

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

It always makes me furious too whenever someone says "I could write a book about..." and then they say "But I don't have time" as if there is some mythical "writing time" that authors create around them. Granted I'm lucky enough due to the credit crunch to be unemployed at the moment but I know writers who are married, or who have dependents, who work 14 hours a day, or have 2 jobs and still they manage to write. I actually wrote more when I was working, because i had to find the time to do it.

You should post this in meta_writer

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

This is really good!

[firefly67.livejournal.com]

And it's such fun when the characters, of their own volition, begin to take on 3-D life. And even more fun when your friends start having dreams about your fictional characters! My writing friend Sara had a dream about two of mine while she was being my beta-reader/editor for 'Alley Dreams', and that delighted me nearly as much as the characters themselves did. Though she dreamed them in an 'Old West' setting rather than either of the locales they haunt in the novel, it was somehow appropriate nonetheless--she did dream them hunkered around a campfire--which is exactly what they often did in the novel!

You can't make people get round that fear and just write--you can only tell them so many times & they have to get it for themselves. I've been struggling w/novel #3 for a year or two now, and it hasn't come clear yet for me, either plot or characters. But it'll emerge one of these days, and whatever is holding it up will dissipate. I figure there's something I don't know yet, or haven't yet become aware of, that will bust down the door I can't quite open, and these characters, one of whom is both complex, new, but intimately related to characters from my first 2, will start to tell me their tale in no uncertain terms.

And that's the most fun of all :)

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[lisichance.livejournal.com]

Can I share this with some friends of mine and my husband?

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

please feel free to pass this on to whoever needs it.