Writing Advice Archives

Hello Hattie

January 19, 2022 by Jenny Jensen in category On writing . . . by Jenny Jensen tagged as Writing Advice, young authors

A long-term client has an eight-year-old granddaughter who wants to be a writer “just like Grandma”. My client asked me to give this young aspirant some advice about writing. I didn’t want to; I couldn’t think of the last time I’d talked with an eight-year-old – 20 years ago? Of course, I couldn’t say no–I ‘m very fond of this client – so I gritted my teeth and pulled up a blank page. I didn’t want even a note of condescension in this–she’d see through that like the Emperor’s clothes – so I carefully launched into the usual stuff like ‘write what you know’. I surprised myself at what came out.

Hello Hattie,

I think it’s wonderful that you want to be a writer. There’s no time like the present, so you’d best get started. The more you write, the better those words will be. Just like pull ups for your biceps or crunches for the abs, your brain is a muscle and it needs constant sweaty workouts to become the kind of buff story machine every reader wants to read. You got a story in your head? Get it down on paper – just sit down and let it rip. No one but you needs to see these early attempts – not until you’re ready to share – so there’s no shame here. It’s all about trying and doing and then trying and doing all over again. It won’t be long before you start to feel as one with this process of putting ideas and thoughts on paper in a way that reads like a story.

The most common advice to writers is to “write what you know”. Don’t think you know much yet? I’d say you do. You know what it’s like to be a smaller person in a world with a lot of really big people who seem to have lots of rules about what you’re supposed to do and you know how you really feel about some of those rules. Write about that. You know what it’s like to be one of the shortest people at the zoo where getting up close to the animals can be challenging. Write about that. You know what it’s like to be in a group of classmates during recess; you know what goes on amongst you on the playground. Oh yes, write about that.

Best of all though, you have your imagination and you know what’s in there. If it’s an imaginary world only you see and know what goes on there, get it down on paper and see where that takes your story. It can be life in outer space or under sea or in a world that you’ve built yourself. You see, you really do know a lot. Start writing about those things your imagination has crafted.

And read read read. If you love a story then ask yourself why, what made this tale touch you so deeply, how did the author present the beginning, the middle and the end in such a great way? And learn from those writers. Pay attention to how a particularly fantastic character is described, how the words tell you this is a character you will always love or always fear or want to run laughing from. Build you story telling skills by learning from the masters. After all, that’s how they learned much of the craft of writing. Never stop reading.

And never stop writing. I look forward to your first publication.

I’ve printed it out, signed in red ink and put it in a hand addressed envelope. I used a very pretty frog stamp. I’ll put it in the post tomorrow. This young lady may not long remember my advice but I’m betting she doesn’t forget her first snail mail letter.

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Four Steps To Face Your Fears

October 12, 2021 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as Denise M. Colby, encouragement, Writing Advice, writing life

I wanted to write something encouraging this month and decided to repost one of my earliest posts from this blog titled Face Your Fear, which I wrote in 2017. I have found throughout my writing journey, I’ve had some type of fear hold me back, which manifests itself in taking a hit on my productivity and confidence in my writing. So I thought I would repost and share the four steps to help face your fears.

Four Steps to Face your Fear includes going from emotional to analytical response

Because I truly believe taking time to understand your fears each time they rear their ugly heads, can help you overcome them.

And I need the reminder myself these days.

So without further ado, here is the post.

What’s your biggest fear as a writer? For some of you, it might be putting the ideas swirling in your mind into actual words on the paper. For others, it might be pitching your manuscript or creating social media posts. Whatever it is, we all have them. And all that fear causes anxiety, worry, tension, panic, despair…you get the idea (we all write characters who struggle with these, right?). If you’re anything like me, my fears prevent me from accomplishing or completing some of my writing goals.

Four Steps To Help Face Our Fears

First, you must identify it. Write it down. What’s your biggest fear? Stare it straight in the face. It’s not so scary once you look at it written out.

Second, define it a bit more. Add another layer of thought to it. What specifically about it makes you have fear. Is it the entire thing or just a part or two. And then ask yourself, why is it scary for you?

Third, debunk it. Discover counter arguments to your fear. Find out from other authors if they have experienced the same fear. Soon you might realize this is a normal reaction to the process and you might even learn ideas to overcome your fear.

Fourth, push through it. Do one task which causes fear. Ask yourself —what’s the worst that can happen? Find a writing partner who can encourage you and help challenge you to follow through. Note: You may have to do this part more than once.

My own experiment with facing my writing fears

Step #1

I decided to take a 4 x 6 index card and ask myself what my greatest fear was. What I wrote surprised me. In my mind, I had a general overall fear, but when I wrote it down I saw something more specific.

I don’t always sit my butt in the chair and on the surface I tell myself it’s because I don’t have time, but deep down I’m seeing now it might be because I’m afraid. What if I sit down for an hour session and it isn’t any better than when I started? What if I only edit through a 600 word block in that time? I will never finish. And so on and so on….

So, for me, my fear is getting it wrong. I want to hit the mark and soar with my writing. I’ve entered a lot of contests and shown my work, and although I get encouraging feedback, I’m still missing the mark. And I’m afraid it will always be that way.

Step #2

I had to ask myself what specifically about getting it wrong meant. Was it failure? Afraid of what people think?

I don’t think I’m afraid of what people think so much (although I want people to like my work), as I am wondering if what I write will ever be ready to publish. I have lots of ideas, but when I write them down, they don’t sound as great as I thought they were. And I’m afraid no matter how much time I put in, I may never achieve my goal of getting published.

All this fear and doubt affects what I do day to day. How I spend my time. My mental state when I’m writing. And I don’t want it to.

Step #3

Fight back. Who decides if it’s wrong anyway? And how do they decide? Look at how many published authors sent in their manuscript numerous times before it was accepted. It’s just part of the process.

See, by writing it down, I can find counter arguments to what my fear is telling me. And it helps calm down the panic that wants to creep in. It keeps me from letting my fear stop me completely.

Step #4

Step four says to do something to face your fear, so I need to take risks and not be so afraid of doing so. Write a blog post even if it’s not perfect and post it. Write a new scene and show someone. Get feedback and keep trying. If I don’t do any of these things, I let the fear win. There is always going to be more I can add, more to improve, so why am I waiting to hit send? Waiting doesn’t do anything but feed my fear.

Fear keeps us from our goals. Something none of us wants.

For fun, I came up with this acronym. As we know, fear is an emotional response. We need to stop reacting to our fear and work on ways to work through it. So, FACE your FEAR. Fix And Change Every Fear from Emotional to an Analytical Response.

All so we can meet our goals. We all have goals we want to achieve, right?

So take some time and write down what your fear is and then face it. You just might work through that writer’s block you’ve been struggling with.

Hugs & Blessings,

Denise

Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, & engage. Every year, she chooses a word to focus on. This year her word is Wisdom. If you’d like to see more of Denise’s posts on this blog, you can check out her archives.

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How to Finish Your Book and Keep Your Day Job: Protect your writing time like a mother protecting her young

November 3, 2020 by Janet Elizabeth Lynn and Will Zeilinger in category Partners in Crime by Janet Elizabeth Lynn & Will Zeilinger tagged as How to finish your book and keep your day job?, Planning, Writing Advice, writing time

How to finish your book and keep your day job?

Protect your writing time like a mother protecting her young

Writing a book is a work of love. However, things get in the way, i.e. work. We all dream of the day when we can make enough money to survive by writing. Until that day comes (if it ever does), we need to keep our full time jobs. We wrote and published our first five books working full time.

Time management is nothing to joke about when trying to write and support yourself or family with a full time job. Find the gaps in your schedule or day and use them to the fullest. Guard them and don’t let anything get in the way of your writing time. This is why scheduling writing time works so well. You can plan around the time.

We write between 6:00- 8:00 every morning. The only thing that keeps us from not writing is a fever of over 102. For us this is the best time because our day has not yet begun and we can focus on writing after a good night’s sleep. Pick a time of day where interruptions are at its minimum and plan it. We also clear our desks and have everything we need to write (on the desk) so we don’t need to get up. So just plan ahead.

Keep up the good writing.

Janet and Will

Chatting with Authors

Will Zeilinger and Janet Elizabeth Lynn created “Chatting With Authors.” This channel features informal interviews with authors of varied genres, produced via Zoom, and aired every Friday. Head over to YouTube and listen.

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Dear Extra Squeeze Team, Should I Quit Writing?

October 31, 2020 by The Extra Squeeze in category The Extra Squeeze by The Extra Squeeze Team tagged as Dear Extra Squeeze Team, inspiration, Should I Quit Writing, The Extra Squeeze Team, Writing Advice, writing help

Dear Extra Squeeze Team,

It feels like the entire world is telling me to quit writing…is this normal and what should I do? Should I quit writing?

Rebecca Forster

USA Today Bestselling author of 35 books, including the Witness series and the new Finn O’Brien series.

I am tempted to sit down beside you and just cry.

Instead, I’m going to tell you to buck up, bucko!

I know, I hated hearing that too, but we’ve all been there, done that. Instead of being the company misery loves, I’ll offer this. I sold my first three books and then spent years trying to sell another one. When I finally figured out what was wrong, there was no stopping me. I also had a good friend who was rejected 40 times, and when she finally sold a book her career took off. Every writer’s struggle is different and how we deal with it is too.

In my case, I defaulted to my comfort zone — analysis. I certainly could put a sentence together, but when I reread my rejection letters, I realized my storytelling was lacking. Instead of flying by the seat of my pants as I had early on, I now sought out ways to educate myself about structure. I also realized I was afraid to delve into my characters. They were cookie cutter, and I needed to be more invested in their lives. I asked myself if I was writing in the correct genre. When the answer was no, and I switched genres my career turned around. Finally, I asked myself if I understood the publishing businesses well enough to navigate it.

The bottom line was this I needed to learn a craft. Writing isn’t just something that happens magically. You need to stretch your creative and business muscles, learn the game, and then make it your own. Information is out there. Embrace it, understand it, and use it. If you’re having trouble being objective about your own work, seek out an editor. If you can’t afford an editor, find a mentor. If you can’t find a mentor, find a friend who loves to read and who is very honest to give you feedback. If the world is telling you to quit, figure out why, and then show the world they were wrong.

Jenny Jensen

Developmental editor who has worked for twenty plus years with new and established authors of both fiction and non-fiction, traditional and indie.

Do your level best to ignore those negative feelings —there’s probably few writers who haven’t felt doubt. Keep writing. Everyday. Storytelling is a craft and like every craft it takes practice to perfect. Rejection is a part of that process and is often the most instructive tool a writer can receive: why was the work rejected? Work on strengthening the weaknesses that caused the rejection. Same with healthy criticism.

Simple is not always easy, but it really is simple. If you want to write, then there is nothing that will stop you. Just keep on writing and improving, writing and improving even more.

H.O. Charles

Cover designer and author of the fantasy series, The Fireblade Array

Yes, it’s normal.

Commercially speaking, it’s very hard to know when to listen to the world and when to defy it. Sometimes great works are never appreciated until decades later.

Outside of money, if you feel you have to write, then it doesn’t matter what the world thinks. Most writers find their fingers tapping away at something regardless of negative reviews, poor sales etc. It has to be a hobby you enjoy before anything else.

Robin Blakely

PR/Business Development coach for writers and artists; CEO, Creative Center of America; member, Forbes Coaches Council.

Welcome to the world of writing.

It is completely normal to feel, from time to time, that this world has conspired against you and that it is secretly or not-so-secretly telling you to quit writing. This quitting option seems to present itself at critical moments repeatedly while creative people are wandering up the road less traveled.

When you feel this kind of despair, you have two simple choices: quit or don’t quit. If you decide to quit, perhaps you can imagine that the quitting is just for a while, not forever. Sometimes quitting for a period of time can be a pretty good choice if you are exhausted and burned out.

But, I would hope that you might choose to not quit. If you choose to carry on instead of quitting, perhaps you could take this juncture to step back for a moment and evaluate what is happening to make you feel this way.

Perhaps you have surrounded yourself with naysayers. If so, get away from them. Perhaps you have driven yourself to exhaustion with self-demands of perfection or self-expectations of production. If so, get some help from someone who can objectively reset those goalposts with you.

Everyone goes through stages and phases of battle weariness when fighting the unknown. Writers face a lot of unknowns and the most intense moments typically happen right before a breakthrough.

Ever wonder what industry professionals think about the issues that can really impact our careers? Each month The Extra Squeeze features a fresh topic related to books and publishing.

Amazon mover and shaker Rebecca Forster and her handpicked team of book professionals offer frank responses from the POV of each of their specialties — Writing, Editing, PR/Biz Development, and Cover Design.

If you have a question for The Extra Squeeze Team, use our handy dandy contact form.