You know that great book you read that altered how you saw the world? What if the author was too busy watching Netflix, looking at Facebook posts and checking their Twitter feed to write it? Yeah... exactly. No excuses. Just write. For me, it was the Alchemist. Thank the universe Paulo Coelho had the gumption to see that book through.
We all see the world through our own eyes. Everything is happening to us. If someone chuckles, we question if they're laughing at us. We hear a song that's great and wonder why everyone doesn't love it as much as we do. We are the most important person in our world, and we should be. Outside of ourselves, we should see the rest of humanity as secondary characters in OUR story. The problem is, we writers tend to create our stories as if the protagonist's world is a reflection of how we perceive the world through our personal, singular lens. The world doesn't work that way! You, the reader of this blog post are not a secondary character in the Harule Stokes' comedy. In fact, in your eyes, I'm
Do you think the Universe doesn't have a backup plan? Of course it does! So, if you don't write that great, world changing story, someone else will. No excuses. Just write.
How to develop and bring to life those great characters for maximum effect.
Just because we writers sit in chairs for hours at a time doesn't mean we have to be slobs. Keep your body strong so you can write more for longer. Strong body, strong mind. No excuses. Just write.
We've all experienced it. Sitting in front of a blank page, fingers on the keyboard but nothing happening. You can almost hear the sound of your digital clock ticking away the seconds, but still nothing flows out of you. Suddenly you have a hint of movement so you start a sentence, erase, start again, erase... not good enough! Frustrated, you begin the process of "looking" for some form of inspiration or encouragement that'll help you put one word in front of the other. Before you know it, an hour has passed and all you've done is watch videos on Youtube, read your Twitter feed and/or chuckled at some Facebook posts. Another day of wasted effort filled with nothing to show for it. Ugh. Write
Waiting for inspiration is like waiting for water to boil, but never turning on the stove. No excuses. Just write.
Darkness filled my hollow core for such a long time I’d forgotten what light felt like. I could no longer find memories of warm illumination, could no longer feel it lift my spirit on dark days. I sat in that darkness and remained ignorant of what life felt like to exist in anything but the shadows. That space became my home and I learned to not only endure it, but enjoy my stay therein. It was safe in the gloom, because I knew it. I mastered my navigation within its rocky seas, accepting the crashes, satisfied only with the fact they didn’t shatter me. Everything changed when I saw the light. There it stood, defiant before the shade, inscrutable to it and subsequently, myself. How could suc
