Wishing you a very (shut up Stephen King ;) ) merry Christmas!

Seriously?!

I am def counting more hair in my brush.

Just saying.

Alas I get to read lately.

A LOT.

And visiting Christmas markets.

That's what it says most of the time...

(Before it shuts down and starts all over.)

Sometimes fresh starts are def better.

In real life and in computer life.

Any explanation will do at this point.

I know better.

It's trolls.

Never cats.

Never.

Still working on it...

And so the saddest time of the year starts...

... for all those who don't have family...

But I hope you all get to be with loved ones

and will be cherished and hug

(my condolences to turkey families)

Got a new win10 computer...

Of course my entire life is on my old win7 machine...

ARRGHHH.

And so the horror begins.

Sometimes... sometimes it's real.

Don't worry, taking a break...

THE CALL – 4 X 4 THINGS ABOUT AGENTS

Claire Lyman has found an Agent! 

I’m so glad for her, and her story is sobering as well as enlightening. Thank you for sharing, Claire. Your tenacity and dedication are awesome – and the very best of luck for your onward journey. (Reblogged from Jane Bwye)

It’s been a little over two months since I got The Call, and I haven’t quite come down off my cloud. I’ve been writing for six years, churned out three novels and one slightly strange memoir/novel hybrid thingy, done an MFA in Creative Writing, been to more writing conferences than I can shake a stick at, read the magazines, read the books, done NaNoWriMo twice, been active on Authonomy back in its heyday, and finally, finally I have an agent for my novel, Unscripted.
Here’s some of what I’ve learned along the way.
Four ways to get an agent
A disclaimer: while I have heard of people getting agents in all four of these ways, only one of them has worked for me.

1. Pitch, pitch, pitch. Go through your Writers and Artists’ Yearbook or your Writer’s Market or your Twitter list of agents, check the agents in question represent your genre, and follow their submission guidelines. Do a lot of these. For both of the novels I pitched, I told myself I would get to 100 agents before I re-assessed whether I would be better served by a small indie publisher or self-publishing. For the latest round, I decided I would do one a day so that the task wouldn’t seem overwhelming, and also so that when the inevitable rejections started trickling, I would always know there were lots more potentially catchable fish in the sea.

2. Speed pitching events. At many writers’ conferences, there are opportunities to spend six or eight or ten minutes one-to-one with agents and editors, telling them about your novel. In the end, though, even if they say yes, you still basically have to pitch them by email, just with the added advantage of their having met you and possibly already requested a partial or a full.

3. Follow the hashtag #mswl on Twitter. (I recommend typing in #mswl lang:en into search, to filter out any weird stuff that sometimes comes up under this hashtag.) MSWL stands for manuscript wish list, and agents will sometimes be very specific about what they are looking for (“a modern retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in Mexico!” “A gender-flipped YA adaptation of Snow White!” “Historical fiction with a magical realism twist!”) When you then pitch them (by email, as normal, not on Twitter) put #mswl in the subject line: this will whet their appetites and possibly bump you higher up their email queue.

4. Go to every writers’ event that you can. Conferences, summer schools, everything. Sometimes, if you’re going to a workshop, don’t take the manuscript that needs the most work, even though that may seem counterintuitive. Take something that is ready, or almost ready, to be pitched. It is possible that the person leading your workshop may know an agent and may recommend you to them. I don’t know if this works as a strategy or if I was just incredibly fortunate. It certainly wasn’t a calculated thing on my part – nobody had told me my manuscript was ready. And I still had to pitch the agent in the usual way – but I presumably got bumped to somewhere near the head of the queue, and the agent possibly read my work with an eye to liking it, not to rejecting it.

Four things I love about having an agent

1. It helps me believe in myself.

Rightly or wrongly, I think of myself as a Legit Writer now. When people ask me what I do, I say that I’m a novelist. I hold my head a little higher and make eye contact as I do. I’m almost certain that the magical “rep’ed by…” line in my Twitter bio has made other authors on Twitter take me more seriously. After years of sitting in workshops having people say what is wrong with my writing, someone – someone who knows what she is talking about, someone who knows what sells – has fallen in love with my book, gets it, is championing it. It’s a bit of a rush, to be honest.

2. My friends are so excited for me!

Most of them don’t really understand what an agent does – which is fair enough; I don’t have much of a clue as to most of their various industries entail either – but when I posted on Facebook that I had one, I got the most likes I’ve possibly ever had, including from people I was sure had long since unfollowed me. They ask me often now what’s next with my book and when they’re going to get to read it. (Patience, I want to say to them. Patience. It’s going to be, like, forever.) They are excited for me and that keeps me excited too, including through the whole editing process, which has been tougher on the emotions than I expected and is only just beginning.

3. No more query letters

From now on, my agent will be the one to send out the letters, or emails, or make the phone calls. She is the one who will champion my book and tell others how great it is. And where I feel like I have to  be restrained, and where perhaps I see the flaws in my book or have insecurities about it, she can shout from the rooftops how great she thinks it is, in the way that you can when a novel is not yours but somebody else’s. (It probably also helps that she is American, rather than British and can therefore unironically use words like “awesome”.) I have the choice as to how much or how little I want to know about the process, whether I want to see the rejections. I can protect myself if I decide to. Yay.

4. I’m not alone!

My agent has some very definite ideas about my book – certain plot points, character traits, word choices. Sometimes those are hard to hear, but sometimes they have been incredibly helpful, wise, and insightful. She has saved me from myself a number of times already: the Lower West Side of New York, for example, is apparently not a thing. Oops. And it’s great to have someone to bat ideas around with, to talk through changes I want to make. It’s not that I didn’t have anyone before – but now I have someone with an actual investment in my novel. Someone who is not just guessing what agents might like or editors might like but someone who actually knows. That doesn’t mean I have to do – or even want to do – everything she suggests, but it’s a great safety net, and so I feel more secure.
So, basically: getting an agent isn’t easy. It sometimes takes years. But it is worth waiting for. So worth waiting for.

Tracking down my writerly mind...

And should my writing inspiration sneak by,

jump on it and tie it to the sofa until my mind is back as well!!

I've been out of order...

Between frantic Authonomy visits 

- I was the last and turned the light off, yes I did! - 

mourning the loss and trying to figure out what it was 

that I wanted to start again once Autho-time was over... 

I discovered that meanwhile summer had disappeared 

and somehow merged into a type of early winter 

- ARRGH - 

I lost myself. 

And one or the other plant I tried to move in in time, but got sidetracked rolling up hoses. 

Some of which are still leaning against trees because I found nuts on the way. 

Oh yes, there's a pile somewhere, but then I remembered that the stray cats 

should have a little cat house... 

So what was this all about...?! 

Ah, WRITING. 

Yeah, I kinda forgot about that...

Oh that just really, really hurt... RIP Authonomy!

Found a book to take my mind off... AND:

Yeah. Just great.

Writer in a color chart...

Need to fiddle in a new one now:

Searching for new writer's community.

(pink - as in search for the pink unicorn)

Thanks Authonomy and Harper Collins!

(back to crying. Turquoise)

Shhhh!!! Still suffering from Authonomy loss...

No, it was NOT my introduction!!

Ok, I may have just introduced AUTHONOMY to you - but the fact that it shortly after announces its closure has NOTHING to do we me! I hope...
Sadly - here is the post. And all Authono-MITES are now frantically searching for a new home.
As do I.
Suggestions welcome. (I will go and cry while you read.)

Reblogged from Authonomy-Blog

A Message from Authonomy

It is with great sadness that we must announce the closure of Authonomy.

We created Authonomy in 2008 as a way of discovering new talent by throwing open our doors to unagented, aspiring writers, and asking likeminded writers and readers to help us discover and champion great work. Through Authonomy, we found fantastic authors, such as Miranda Dickinson, Steven Dunne and Kat French, and published incredible titles, such as The Qualities of Wood and Someone to Love Us.

Unfortunately in recent years publishing of titles from the site has slowed as we have opened other submissions channels, and the community has become smaller, so the decision to close Authonomy has been made.

HarperCollins remains committed to discovering new writers, and this is reflected in our dynamic, genre-focused, digital-first lists such as HarperImpulse, and our open submissions windows for innovative commercial imprints such as Voyager and The Borough Press. We would encourage the very talented members of the vibrant Authonomy community to continue to show us their work through these channels.

In the meantime, the site will remain in operation until 30th September 2015, to give you ample time to retrieve work, exchange manuscripts with your friends on the site and arrange to keep in touch.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for playing a part in the Authonomy story over seven wonderful years. We might have had the idea, but it was truly made by you and your passion for the written word.

We hope that you have gained something special from belonging to the Authonomy community, whether that is the ability to evaluate your own work more easily, new writing skills, or friendship and support from your peers. Above all, we hope you enjoyed it. We certainly did.

We very much hope this is not goodbye and that you will continue to interact with us via one of our many other routes for submissions. Until then, we wish you the very best for your future and for your writing.

The Authonomy Team

HarperCollins

Writer's Break

How a Vacation from your world will benefit you!

 or:

Why You Need to Take a Vacation from Your World

part 2 

by Emily Tjaden - reblogged from This incandescent life

I’m not talking about going out of town, but if you want to/can, that’s great. Take a real vacation, as those are exciting. But what I’m talking about is far more simplistic than that. Just take the day off. Go somewhere if you want, but the most important part is to let your mind go. Get out of your story world for the day. Don’t even think about it.
This is something we as writers often neglect. We forget the real world; the here-and-now, and get caught up in creating things that could be. And you know, it’s amazing how nothing drains the well of creativity faster than this neglect. We forget where such things come from.
“Write what you know.” You’ve heard the saying—we all have. It’s just that we all have a fairly small pool of knowledge in the grand scheme of life. And we wonder why the well runs dry? Stop swimming in the pool and dip your toe in the ocean. The fact is, inspiration, even for fantasy, comes from the real world.  It comes from life. That’s why it’s crucial to take time to experience it outside of your own world. Doing this will directly fuel your creative juices.

As writers, we pride ourselves on perception; on assertiveness, and attention to detail. Then why is it so easy to sink so deep into our own worlds that we forget to stop and look at the things around us?
Go outside today, or if you’re busy, make some time in your schedule to leave your story world behind and go on an adventure. A real one. Take a walk, or meet a friend for coffee. Experience life. Ask questions. Take time to wonder about things perhaps unrelated to your writing. Who knows? You may end up with a plethora of inspiration.

Writer's vacation: Leaving your world behind for a while!

or:

Why You Need to Take a Vacation from Your World

part 1

 

by Emily Tjaden - reblogged from This incandescent life

 

As writers and other creative types, we spend a lot of time inside our own heads. That’s where we do our best work, after all. Our minds are constantly employed; we spend copious amounts of energy pondering ideas, creating unique characters, stories, and worlds—not to mention putting it all on paper. It’s not altogether surprising that writers are often accused of “living in a fantasy world.” Let’s be honest; sometimes we kind of do.

The time we spend inside our own worlds isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, it’s our job. The problem is, writers sometimes find it much more difficult to take time off than people who work other sorts of jobs. For many of us, writing is not only our job, it’s our obsession.

It turns out that a lot of writers are prone to be workaholics. We simply don’t know how to take time off. And I don’t just mean taking time off from sitting at our desks, staring at our blinking cursers. I mean taking a vacation from that world.
If you’re anything like me, you demand a lot from yourself. If you didn’t write a thousand words today, you’re a lazy slacker who needs to cut Pinterest from your diet for a week until you catch up and meet all your goals. (Okay, I’m not that bad, but you get the picture.) Writers—serious ones—tend to set standards and self-imposed deadlines.
There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, keeping yourself on track is important. It’s your job. But as creative types, we can be very self-critical and leave little margin in our self-imposed schedules. We make ourselves feel guilty for taking time off. We even feel guilty for wanting or needing that time—even if our creative well is running dry. Instead, we just get frustrated.
Despite the toll it takes on our energy and brainpower, it’s super easy for us to convince ourselves that we don’t actually need to take vacations; that if we just work harder, things will eventually fall together. But the fact is, you do need that time. Time away from your work—whatever it may be—will help you do better work. It’s crazy, but it’s true.

Writer's vacation reading time!

Definition:

Working through tons of books,

wondering how they got published!

WHY writer's need a vacation...

The truly scary part about this cartoon?

I own that cup.

This could be my future self.

ARRRGGHHH!!!

How to Take a Writer's Vacation

By L.J. Bothell - reblogged from Absolute Write

Who are you kidding? Writers never take vacations. Even if you were stranded on a desert island, you'd still be observing sea bird flying formations and the interesting patterns that incoming surf makes in the sand. Why not find ways to put your writing know-how together with your vacation plans so you can get the best from both?

Preparation

Any writer should travel with some kind of journal. It should be lightweight and sturdy so you can write on buses, trains, and planes, and in airports, midnight hotel rooms, or at a park bench. It can cover any aspect of your vacation, such as international dining, savvy transportation, or tent-pitching/collapses. Jot down new smells, sights, sounds, cultural habits, language barriers, and little disasters. You never know what will provide your writing with just the flavor it needs.

Take plenty of pictures of anything that strikes your fancy. Photos help cement journal notes and provide pictorial supplements to travel articles. Take mood pictures as well as ones featuring your companions. Your family will want memories of their happy faces during camping; editors will want more tone and place-oriented travel shots.

Travel with an open mind. To achieve vacation Zen, pack light, research intended destinations in advance, and try to be prepared for anything. Then relax and let the experience happen so you can fill your journal and camera with anecdotes and lessons. If you are toting around too much luggage or don't know the first thing about hiking, you'll exhaust yourself just trying to get by. Instead, pack for the right weather, know the food you'll likely be eating, and study the public transit and local roads. If traveling internationally, learn language basics, the currency, and transit systems like the trains. Then focus on the nitty gritty of living like a temporary local and getting the insights that will perk up your characters and settings.

Writing Spin-offs

Writers use their travel experiences differently. You might be a straight fiction writer who wants to enhance mood and realism, or you might like to do something specific with your travel experiences, for instance, contribute blurbs and articles to your local papers. These might be as simple as "local writer goes abroad" to detailing the conditions at your airport. Offer an editorial on your travel experience, or develop a supplement with pictures of obscure beaches.

Write travel articles for publications and travel sites. Check out magazines from your insurance and auto club companies (like AAA) for writing about US destinations. Study airline in-flight magazines for international travel writing. You can find many other travel writing outlets for vacations to local or wilderness sites, festivals, and cultural events.

Give travel advice. How-to's make excellent curiosities. Have you ever arranged for a visa, leisurely toured Europe by train, or safely backpacked in Latin America? Do you know travel entertainments that work on your kids, or ways you and your hubby can sneak off for romantic moments? If you ever developed a list of packing tips, or know how to safely eat abroad, you can bet that there are others who want your experiences.

Share humor from any travel experience. Ever mangled French, or ordered something in Hong Kong that would have horrified you if you'd known what it was? Remember how you set up your first pup-tent, got soaked in an off-season monsoon, or got locked out of your motel in only your bathing suit and a towel? After the fact, you can always find something funny about missing plane connections, grabbing the wrong train, losing your luggage, or finding yourself lost in a rather colorful neighborhood. Many general markets look for these kinds of briefs.

Prose Improvement

Vacations can offer opportunities for observing people and unique locations. The more observant you become, the more detail and flavor you can build into your prose. Your sense of place will become more vivid, and your characters will begin to feel more like "everyman" than like your immediate circle of acquaintances. Your growing world perspective will help you incorporate richer themes into your stories.

Listen to the language of the places you go. The United States alone has regions with thick dialects to absorb, provided you focus on the flow and intent of the language rather than replicate it exactly. International communication can be even more fun, not just for the romance of the languages but for understanding how differently other cultures might put the same ideas together. Let your interaction with local and international peoples heighten your characterization.

Savor everything about different cultures and locations. What is it about French affairs, French

With good planning, you can turn any vacation into research and seasoning for your articles, stories, and books. Take yourself and your existing perceptions out of the equation and travel as a temporary local-- let everything be new and undiscovered. Experience new ways of doing things and mix with locals as much as possible. Be willing to see things differently than you do every day and to document your experiences. Then carefully select anecdotes, memories, and flavors that will inject vitality and realism into your writing.

architecture, or French food that makes Paris a standard for romance? How do different forms of architecture and art illustrate how a culture grew and what it experiences now? How does roughing it in a national forest bring out your inner grit? Use these journal entries to trigger your memories and enhance your settings.

L.J. Bothell is a graphic designer/writer with marketing communications emphasis who lives and temps/freelances in Seattle, Washington. Recent/upcoming writing vacations include Vancouver, BC, France, and Italy. Questions? Contact ljbwrite (at) att.net.

Writers ON vacation...

 WARNING!

Writing yourself can really spoil your reading!

(I used to just enjoy Robbin Hoob. Nowadays I count her adverbs...)

A writer NEVER has vacation...

Those darn voices again...

Writer's need vacations too...

Does that count even if you've done

NOTHING lately

but think on how to start?!

Try self-edit. Fail. Write will. Reconsider. Win lottery. Get editor. Kill him. Find editor keeping ur voice. Done!

 I cam up with above solution, but you might try below as well

Reblogged from Now Novel

How to self-edit your writing: 8 tips

Learning how to self-edit your writing empowers you to polish your prose. Ernest Hemingway famously quipped that you should ‘write drunk and edit sober’. This might not be good advice for teetotallers (or in general). But there is a grain of truth in Hemingway’s words: you need a state of mental clarity that allows you to be methodical when editing. A professional editor who has polished many novels can turn your promising manuscript into a sleek novel. Yet if you can’t afford professional editing services at present, or want to tidy up your work before showing it to an editor, you can learn how to self-edit well. See the infographic below for top tips on editing your story:

It often pays to read what published authors have to say on the nuts and bolts of writing. Here are three additional quotes to keep in mind when editing your own writing:

1. Dr Seuss, author of much-loved children’s books, was a master of concision (packing as much meaning into as few words as possible):

‘So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.’

2. Popular novelist Jodi Picoult reminds us that it is useful to have different strategies for writing and editing. You don’t have to be meticulous when drafting, but you must be when you edit your writing:

‘You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.’

3. Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s songs are full of witty wordplay and pack complex emotions into brief musical numbers. He advocates not editing as you go but separating the writing and editing stages:

‘The worst thing you can do is censor yourself as the pencil hits the paper. You must not edit until you get it all on paper. If you can put everything down, stream-of-consciousness, you’ll do yourself a service.’

Do you edit your own work? What editing methods or strategies do you use?

Oh, I am not nuts, we are only many?!

Would everybody please shut up for a second?!

I need to have a group discussion with myself.

Once the characters make space on the sofa...

Never a doubt in my mind...

It's a talent, darn, nothing wrong with me!

Love new input from critique partners! But...

Any ideas?

979 likes! At 1000 I open myself an Asti! Eehhaaa!!!

https://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaHGruy  

#amwriting #writerslife

Let me introduce: Authonomy!

In case you wondered why you don't see me "online" anymore it's because

I'm writing constantly and make wonderful progress!

 OK,OK!!!

I am over at that place I joined beginning of the year called

Authonomy

It's a wonderful site for writers and readers, created by editors from 

Harper Collins 

to help unpublished writers get spotted.

So if you have one of those dusty or shiny new manuscripts in your drawer you should head over
and join us there! You can find dozens of like-minded people to read it and offer feedback, rate it, champion it, and if you're lucky it might even fall into the hands of an editor at Harper Collins.

How?

Chose an avatar and a name (you might want to chose something anonymous unless you have that perfect thing in your drawer and you're absolutely sure, nobody will come to harm while reading it!)

Next create a cover for your book - you even find helpful artists there to draw one up for you.
I loved doing it myself ;)

Now comes the most challenging part (I think): 

Come up with a pitch -
a short one  (150 words - you can do it - you've been training on twitter and that's less than 150 characters!!) and a longer one giving the essence of what your story is about and what is at stake.

Those pitches are REALLY  important!

You want to draw someone coming across your book in immediately - 

they have to be so intrigued they want to start on it right away.

Or at least, if they don't download before they leave, mark it to read later.

 With hundreds of books up on the site, readers can't read everything, so they're selective!

So in a way these pitches are more important than your book itself. 

Visitors read them and decide whether your book is worth checking out. 

The pitch sells or it doesn't, just like a query letter would once you're hunting for an agent.

And who are these readers? Everybody!

As a writer, you can post your entire manuscript for everyone to read and comment on 

and you go about and read and comment on other books in turn. 

 Each reader gets to have 5 favorites on their bookshelf out of all the books up on the Authonomy site. A book's ranking is based on how many readers have selected it as one of their top five.

At the end of  each month, the top five out of all the top fives,
are passed on to Harper Collins Editors Desk.
So if everyone loves your work and recommends it enough,
it'll land on a real living breathing editor's desk of the site to be - TATA! - read!  

No guarantee of getting published of course, but your MS gets attention from a top publisher editor, and they'll give feedback even if they don't decide to publish you.

Which is - if you like what they say or not in the end - beyond valuable for polishing your baby!

It won't fall in your lap though.

So be prepared to spend time in the Authonomy forums, socialize and actively help others.

 You will get a lot out of that as well, as chances to really make it to the editor's desk are slim.
Unless you're shamelessly plugging your book and schmoozing with the readers. It's said the desk - sometimes - reflects that. But who cares. They aren't exactly liked by others (they also troll around spreading one stars trying to bring other books down).

But let's face it - it's a micro-cosmos reflecting society, right?

But chances are there.

And: as I said in the beginning - there are tons of other writers and readers - willing to give feedback in exchange and you can even pick specific groups depending on which part of your manuscript you want to tackle, the beginning, first chapters, specific genres...

As with all critiques - take them with a grain of sugar - it's still your story,

but if a many people comment on the same thing it might be worth looking at it.

But the more you support, the more help you get from others!

And then you have tons of different opinions - instead of just one from the desk - 

to got back and edit, edit, edit...

So, don't wait, go discover! 

Free books to read ;)

  http://www.authonomy.com

and if you want to visit me:

lilmerlin welcomes you!

Is it so hard to give objective critique?!

Yep.

Appears to be.

Dang.

The danger if writers take a walk.

My computers cord ain't long enough!!!

I'll have to discuss that now with my characters...

50:50

We will go for a walk.

And yep.

Yep.

Let's blame it on Writer's Block again...

Beware!

This medical condition is one of the hardest to cure.

To my knowledge there's no preventive shot for that yet.

Writer's frustration - part 2

Ok, so avoiding frustration by focusing on something else doesn't work so well - why? Because I follow a PATTERN. And the patter is, checking into Scrivener after all the procrastination to see if the program has magically filled in for me and scribbled down something really exciting on it's own that will make me want to immediately start.

Nope.

And now I'm REALLY upset. Another day wasted. Nothing achieved. Everything is going down the train. My story sucks. I suck.

Alas, discovering what those damning patterns are and following your reoccurring emotional reactions and working with them to help you stay focused is the key to reducing your frustrations. I write about working happy, but I had fooled myself into believing that I was enjoying the writing process, when in reality I was frustrated 75% of the time. I pushed through these feelings because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. It wasn’t until I began to notice these patterns that I used them to my advantage.
Let’s say I’m working on my book and the words aren’t coming out right. Instead of banging my big head against this project, I try to switch gears and write a blog post about dealing with this frustration (like this post) or a letter about how my sunflowers grow this year (not sure my cousin is really interested but he's gotta live with that). These enjoyable topics keep my brain writing, but with no expectations for trying to make a clear message. I'm sure the positive emotions will start to come back and I’ll give my book another try.

That way I don't feel like I'm just losing time. I'm doing SOMETHING instead. Yep, I still have bangs of frustration and guilt - and panic that this will never get finished and I'll be old, gray and too fragile to enjoy the benefits from when this at last will find an audience (it will, right?! New panic...)

That’s why I can write when it feels like trudging through mud. I’ve watched my habits surface over and over. That doesn't mean I can successfully fight them, by noticing these feelings when they first occur I can TRY to direct my emotions in a more positive direction. There are almost always some positive thoughts that need to get out even if it doesn’t help me further my book.
If nothing seems to be working, which usually happens at least 1 day out of 7, or more likely once a day right now, I just throw in the white towel and go for a walk. Which has done a lot for my condition actually. Or I cuddle my cat, water plants or treat myself to a nice coffee and cake break with a puzzle. I no longer get only mad that the words won’t come out, because I know that tomorrow will most likely bring that little bit of magic that today just didn’t want to release.
Or the day after.
Or at least next week.
Hopefully next week.

What frustration looks like...

Writer's frustration...

When it flows, it flows, but when it doesn't ... Arrrrgh!!!

Frustration can take all the joy out of writing. I know because it plagued me a lot recently. Actually since I started getting 50:50  critiques from my critter groups. If I get a lot of negative, I howl, but I know things have to change (really positive ones I generally have a hard time trusting, so I focus on negative ones). But if they are equally spread and comment on the same things with both, I have no clue from where to go. I fidget, rewrite and at last reverse everything. Don't get me wrong: I love to write and when the words are flowing, the moment feels magical. I never want to stop. This is a rare occurrence. Most days are filled with a stop and go rhythm. Now it's mostly stop and stare...

 

Expectations

I realize as a writer, you must remain aware of your expectations and emotions. When I hit a wall,  “me” still stresses out. I try to force it. Make a schedule, want to get my hours of writing in no matter what - and basically just waste TONS of time. I get up from my chair and clench my fists or let out a loud grunt. I used to believe that this would help me release my frustrations, but when I look back I realize that it only made me more upset. It wasn’t until I began to recognize these emotions as they bubbled to the surface that I am able to nip these feelings before they took over. It does take as much energy and focus as writing itself does though.
A writer creates frustration when they focus too much on their expectation of what they want to achieve instead of enjoying the words that are actually coming out. It all comes down to a simple emotional process. The gap between what we want and what we have is what really frustrates us.
It's not so much the uselessly staring at the screen - and switching to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter instead (those get regular updates right now lol)
More in the next post - I have a new pic for Insta ;)

Shhht!!! I'm a writer!

A Writer's Brain...

When I'm writing...

Mind of a creative...

A writer's struggles...

It was a dark and stormy night...

Readers & Commentators