Just Write!

Why it is Prevalent Advice

After years of reading blogs and books or listening to podcasts to help my authors there is one common bit of wisdom that writers seem to avoid. It's been in bold, italics, set by itself or so many other ways which are not subtle. Yet, there are writers still following blogs and podcasts or buying books and magazines on "How to Write a Book!"

Let's distill what all of these authorities keep saying, repeatedly:

Just Write

Honestly, it's not easier said than done. It's something you do, without talking about it, thinking about it, planning it, arranging around it or even worrying about it. As a matter of fact, you are not writing a book at this point you are just telling a story. So the mantra is: Write the story. Write the story. Write the story.

Just Write

It's going to be ugly, even monstrous. Your rough draft should be horrible, warty and slimy. It should have so many typos and grammatical errors that your word nerd friends would cringe. It should have plenty of sections which don't make sense or are just plain wrong. You heard me, it should be wrong. Inaccurate descriptions, incorrect information and completely wrong words. 

Just Write

Who cares if you have the right tech? Use the voice memo function of your smart phone to get your ideas out then transcribe the ideas into notepad or word. If you'd like to use software, that's great. Yet don't get stuck on all the functions that you can do with the software, just use it to put something together. Don't get lost outlining, or creating your character sketches, or... , or...

Just Write

Not one published author wrote the perfect book on the first try. They wrote a terrible draft that no one got to see, revised it as best they could - possibly twice, sent it to beta readers, revised it again after getting the betas' feedback, sent it to the content editor, revised with those notes, sent it to the line editor, revised with those notes and finally sent it to the copy editor to format. Mind you some of them even send it to a proofreader before sending a manuscript to their copy editor. Phew!

So why try to do the work ahead of time to write the perfect book when you're going to have to make changes and revisions later on?

Just Write

Let the rest of us worry about making it pretty and ready for public consumption. We just want you to focus on getting a story out. Write the story that's buzzing insistently to get out, write the story which distracts you throughout the day as it flutters back and forth, write the story you need to tell. I want to read it, but I can't if you don't

Just Write

Catching the wave!

Holy Moly!

The last couple of weeks have been filled with one wave of projects after another. And catching each wave at the right time as well as staying on it has been a great challenge. I have learned a lot. About me, about my colleagues and even about my husband. We are definitely moving upward and riding those waves a lot better with every set.

Being part of a team where I get to play with content a bit brings me a little bit of joy. Figuring out how to work through challenges in mindsets and organizing how we communicate on paper or digitally makes me happy as it grows my skills. I am truly grateful for having a place where I have support as I learn different styles of communication.

With that being said, I am missing having words to fuss with. Editing and Formatting for publishing make me happy. So now I need to find at least one more author to keep me busy at home. I am feeling a yearning to write a summary, to play with vocabulary, and to help make a story engaging.

I am ready to catch these waves!

You would think...

that I am crazy!

Well at least if you saw my schedule lately. I am certainly getting a lot of things accomplished and helping quite a few other people. Sadly, this is leaving my free quiet time much more scarce than usual. This is bad for getting these stories done and off to readers. This is also bad in that I am getting way more ideas for other stories that I shouldn't be worrying about yet!

Last night was the first meeting of our new writing group. I decided it would be a good idea to get together with other writers for support and a little accountability. The three of us that showed had a good time getting to know each other. We certainly had plenty to say and different types of questions to ask each other. What we didn't talk about was the idea of setting a deadline. Or scheduling time to get done what we want to do. I did state, when we were on the topic of cover art, that artistic types tend to not understand deadlines. I told my husband I had to really work on my art. Hmmm... (You see where I am going right?)

This makes me wonder how many other writers have issues with deadlines. Are there authors out there that can realistically set their own deadlines and schedules? Is this the much bigger role that having an agent and/or publisher provides? Because in all the research we have done looking up the pros and cons of self-publishing or working with a publishing house, this one point has not come up yet.

I could probably be over-thinking things a bit, again.

Well back to the poetry that seems to be flowing from my personal angst and disappointment!