Saturday, August 7, 2010

Discipline is Needed

I have been reading more books on how to get published, and I have learned a few things.
1. You must write every day, no matter what you are going to do with it.

2. You must read a lot as well, good stuff and bad, because it all soaks into your head and helps you become a better writer.

3. You must develop a thick skin, because there is a lot of rejection out there. A story like "Harry Potter" comes along once in a million years.

4. Grammar, spelling and style are legion. You must either know how to spell or use a good spellcheck program. (This does not worry me, I'm a great speller.)

5. Finally, discipline and perseverance must be your strengths. Keep at it and don't give up, if you do, then you are not a writer, only a dabbler.

I still have a long way to go...I think the hardest part is writing every day. When I was younger I would write a few lines (or more) in my diary every night before bed. I wish I had that enthusiasm now, because it just seems that my daily life is not that interesting to write it all down.
However, the more I think about it, I was not writing it down because it was interesting..I was documenting everything that happened because I wanted to REMEMBER it. Sure, there was a lot more drama in my life back then, but now I can draw upon my life's experience and knowledge to create, not just document.

I will keep working at it.



1 comment:

JayMonster said...

I just spent an interesting weekend learning alot about blogging and writing, and the axiom still holds true, "a writer writes."

Whether it gets published or not, or whether anybody else reads it or not, you become a better write, the more you write.

Thanks to spell checking, spelling is not as huge a deal as it used to be, it can be fixed later.

There are a million things you can write about every single day. Use your phone or keep a notepad around. When you get an idea, or a snippet of one, jot it down, keep it, and expand on it later. Even if it goes nowhere other than from your head to paper (or computer screen), it will make you a better writer (or in my case, longer winded at least)