The Craft | The Process | The Writing Life
The life of a writer isn’t as glorious as it might seem. There are piles of dirty laundry, dishes spilling out of the sink, family dinners consisting of cold cereal, and bags and bags…under the eyes! There are late nights writing into the wee hours of the morning. Everyone else might be sleeping, but your characters insist on keeping you awake. There are crit partners telling you that all those pages you wrote late at night need quite a bit of revision. There’s inspiration striking you at the most inopportune times, usually when you are without pen and paper. And then there are the stacks and stacks of rejections. Oh, the glorious rejections. The heartbreaking, tear-jerking, ego-deflating, head-banging, why-am-I-doing-this rejections. But the good news is that you ARE doing it! You’re a writer! And you’ll be a writer as long as your brain has ideas and your fingers can type! So, don’t despair—follow these links for inspiration on how other writers have managed their crazy lives.
Ideas & Inspiration: Someone farted. A dog barfed. The teacher showed your D to the entire class and made you the laughing stock of sixth grade then she slipped on a banana peel and turned into a zombie. That’s what we writers call inspiration.
- NEW! Three Ways Middle-grade Writing Is Like a Bowl of Lucky Charms (MUF post)
- NEW! Filling the Well: On Growing as a Writer (MUF post)
- Top 10 Deep (& Stolen) Thoughts about Writing (MUF post)
- The Writers’ TOP TEN (MUF post)
- Writing and Walking (MUF post)
- Where’s the Delorean? Or Traveling Back to Middle-Grade (MUF post)
- Writing It Real (MUF post)
- Exploring Your Imagination
Joining the Club: So you want to write children’s books, but you’re not sure where to start? Here’s something to think about. . . .
- On being a hired gun… (MUF post)
Time Management: Laundry. Writing. Dishes and crazy soccer moms. Writing. Homework, commuting, dealing with bald, bad-mouthed bosses. Writing. Oh, and trying to spend some time with your kids and family. Will life ever be normal again? Probably not. But you’re a writer – nothing was ever normal to begin with!
Social Networking & Platform Building: You’ve finally mastered time management and now your publicist/agent/publishing guru says you have to market yourself. Snort. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, blogging, websites, book tours, and Skype visits, OH MY!
- NEW! A Definition of Author Platform
- NEW! 4 Ways to Immediately Improve Your Book Marketing Efforts
- A New Look at Social Networking
- Social Networking Abuse
- Avoiding The Crazy
