"Writer's block? I've heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn't a writer anymore. I'm sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living." — Warren Ellis "There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write." — Terry Pratchett * Here's the thing about writer's block: it's bullshit. If someone says to me, "I have writer's block," then what I hear is: "I'm not writing".So many people believe that writer's block is real. Some even believe that it's a disease. A disease. Sorry, you don't have a disease. Cancer is a disease. Scurvy is a disease. Your blank page is not a symptom of a medical condition. You do not have a disease. You have laziness. You have fear or insecurity. Perhaps you're out of ideas. Or, maybe you just can't write. Maybe, deep down, you don't really want to...
"Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia." -Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction"As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward." -Augusten Burroughs. Everything that I'm about to tell you is completely true, except for the parts that aren't, but there aren't any of those, so let's just get to it. Many writers, as you may or may not know, tend to suffer from a puzzling paradox of a fragile ego combined with a righteous arrogance. We constantly battle fear & self doubt, yet we still manage to believe in ourselves & our words to the very end. Day to day, depending on the weather, intensity of hangover, or how we feel about other people that day, we may feel rather insecure...
"I write for myself and strangers. The strangers, dear Readers, are an afterthought." - Gertrude Stein"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." - Cyril Connolly"A man really writes for an audience of about ten persons. Of course if others like it, that is clear gain. But if those ten are satisfied, he is content." - Alfred North Whitehead...A little more than 10 years ago, I signed up for the class. "Freelance Writing" was the name of the course. I was about 23 years old & was working in a factory. I registered for the course because of the buzzing in my ear that constantly nagged me, reminding me that I had never set out to work in a noisy, stinking factory.Well...the buzzing could have been from the machinery in the factory, but either way, the message was the same.I signed up for the class, I paid the fee. ...
Well, that's because someone else said it first...1. "If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company." -Jean Paul Sartre2. "Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely." -Rodin3. "Holding onto anger is like grasping onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else. You are the one who gets burned." -Gotama Buddha4. "There are two types of people - those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are." -Frederick L. Collins5. "The secret of being boring is to say everything." -Voltaire6. "He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know." -Lao Tzu7. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." -Kurt Vonnegut8. "We judge...
I must have been sniffing glue again. I do that from time to time - glue, magic markers, fresh paint.At the last minute, I was feeling impulsive (again) & decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo.What the hell is that? Well, I'll tell you, just in case you were too lazy to click on the link. That's ok - I'm lazy, too.It seems that November is National Novel Writing Month. You know, because every fucking month is designated as something-or-other month. So, the challenge during the month of November is to write a novel consisting of 50,000 words by midnight on the 30th of November.I completely shunned this last year. However, this year...well, like I already said - glue, markers, fresh paint...yadda, yadda, yadda.The cool thing is, I've actually been doing it. The month is half over & I've only got about 10,000 words left to reach my goal. What surprised me...
Yeah, I have enough arrogance to refer to myself as a writer. A hack writer, to be sure, but a writer nonetheless.To me, a writer is someone who writes. Who needs to write. However, a published writer is something else. The main difference between being a writer & a published writer is really based on one thing: persistence.Of course, to be a published writer, one must actually attempt to have something published.I wrote...I edited...then I wrote again. And again. Eventually, I managed to grow a pair & send off a couple of short story submissions to a magazine in an attempt to elevate my rank from "hack writer" to "published writer".As to be expected, within a matter of days, I received my first rejection! Imagine my delight when I opened my mail to find "Thank you for your short story submissions to Underground Voices. Regretfully, we have to pass, but all...
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