5 things about writing that I wish I knew five years ago

1. It’s a first draft. It’s okay if it sucks. Get over it. Write a second draft. It will suck to. Get over it. Write a third draft… you get the picture. One day you will stop hating your draft.  That’s when you know you’re ready for someone else to see your work.

2. Get a critique group as quickly as you can. When you’re in the second/third draft stage, you’ll need a second pair of eyes to edit, re-write or simply to soothe. You’ll need a group of people that tells you that really, the writing is good and no, you aren’t yet ready to query. You need a critique group that understands your down days, your writing slumps and the sleepless night you had chasing the monsters. They will be there at your most trying times. They’ll keep you honest. They’ll motivate you. They’ll keep you grounded. They’ll let you soar.

3. 10,000 hours of craft building. There’s no substitute for writing. You write and write and write. Writing is the only way you get better at it. There are no short cuts. Malcolm Gladwell’s theory on the 10,000 hours of building a skill, whether you agree with it or not, is motivating enough to get our fingers on the keyboard. It makes me feel better that it would take me 10k hours or about 6 years (at 8 hours a day without any vacations) to become a somewhat decent writer.

4. You are a student. For life. Get used to it. Whether you’ve written a smashingly good draft and are in a query process or still struggling through your first draft, be in student mode. Attend workshops. Take courses. Read Writer’s Digest. Learn how to write that opening sentence. Learn how to build that believable character. Learn how to deal with a sagging middle and write a page turning climax. None of these come to us at first try. It takes practice. The easiest way of getting the practice is to get to a workshop. Jump at every opportunity (funds permitting) to learn.

5. Be kind to yourself. Life happens. Summer vacations happen. Work happens. It’s okay. Have faith. You’ll return to your writing. I wish, more than anything else, that I hadn’t wasted so many hours berating myself over the time I’d wasted seeing the Swiss countryside. That time would have been so much more productive writing!

The J word

  There are many J words: feeling jealous (of friends’ success), being   jaded (of the publishing industry), constant jeering (of others). The J word that’s been on my mind has been judgment.  

 It usually begins with others’ judgments of you. Who you are, what you write, what you do. Then there are those moments of judgment – “Why do you laugh so much? It’s like you are trying to attract attention.” or “Why do you waste your evenings writing when you could be spending time with your mother? It’s not like you are published or anything.”

Judgment, when it comes from a trusted source, begins a chain reaction like no other. There’ the initial surprise: What! Really, do you mean that!? Followed by outright denial: No, I don’t do that. I don’t waste my time. And then anger: How dare she think of me like that? How dare she judge me? That leads to hurt: Does she not understand me? Is she right? Am I a horrible person who hides behind my writing? The most important effect of others’ judgment of you is how you start to see yourself. How it shapes your view of yourself. You begin to wonder who you really are and whether you’ve been deluding yourself all this time. Maybe you aren’t cut out to be a writer. Maybe the evenings you sit in front of your laptop are just an excuse to escape from the world and your real responsibilities.

But then you remember that you love those hours where it’s just you and your characters. That you’ve grown so much as a writer these past few years. That once you finish a couple more drafts you’ll be ready to query your polished manuscript.

Self-judgment is that hill we’ve got to climb over before we can accept someone else’s judgment. Judgment of who we are. What we write. What we wrote a few years ago. What we’ve not yet written. And this acceptance can take various forms. Acceptance can mean that we agree that we aren’t cut out to be writers. We accept we love to read but haven’t become better at our craft. That it will remain a hobby. Or acceptance can mean that we speak out that we’re not hiding behind our writing. That our friend was simply wrong. That writing is vital to who we are. It makes us who we are. Our acceptance can help us deal with the judgment and move on.  It can help us heal the dents to our self-esteem; move beyond self-judgment and continue to write, work on our craft and strive to become who we want to be.

When I remember (and nine out of ten times I don’t) I tell myself that judgment is an opinion. One person’s opinion. It can bring you down or you can use it propel yourself forward on that journey to become a better you and a better writer.

The Last Keeper’s Daughter
by Rebecca Trogner

To the outside world Lily Ayres is the privileged daughter of an old moneyed family. She is young, beautiful, and a talented horsewoman. All of which are enviably qualities, but few know that beneath this thin veneer of societal perfection lies a deeply troubled young woman. For Lily rarely speaks and is incapable of normal, human interaction.

Unable to understand why she is this way, she further retreats inside herself, until memories and suppressed emotions begin to bubble to the surface. Murder, revelations of her family's hidden purpose and dark secrets are revealed as she is thrust into the supernatural world of Krieger Barnes, Vampire King of North America.

 

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17252265-the-last-keeper-s-daughter

Crescent Moon Press: http://crescentmoonpress.com/books/TheLastKeepersDaughter.html