How to Overcome the Fear of Sharing Your Writing

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

Keeping with the theme of fear, and overcoming it, here is some more great advice from blogger Leo Babauta for getting to grips with sharing your writing with the world, whether that’s blogging, writing short stories for magazines, or novel writing.

You’d think that after eight years of public blogging and writing books, I’d be completely free of fear when it comes to putting my writing out in public. You would, of course, be wrong. Hitting “publish” still makes me nervous.

I still get little shivers of nervousness when I hit the “Publish” button on any post, and bigger fears still when I publish a print book or ebook. Writing in public is like speaking in public, if you’re doing it right. You’re baring your soul for all to judge, and there are few things as scary as that. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not only doable, it’s worth the effort to overcome that fear.

I’ve had several people write to me recently asking me about their fears about writing their blog. One person said they deleted their blog because they thought what they’d written was too lame. She said, “I thought it would be great if you could share how to put yourself out there in public and not worry about it.”

Well, I wish I could share the secret to not worrying about putting your writing in public, but I don’t think it exists. It’s scary as hell.

And yet I manage to do it nearly daily. Here’s how:

Write for One Person

You may have heard this advice before from more than one author. It’s impossible to write for thousands of people at once – that’s like trying to have a conversation with a stadium full of people. Who are you addressing? What tone do you use? What do they care about? So instead I follow Kurt Vonnegut’s advice to write for one reader (for him it was his sister). For me, it’s often different people I care about (my wife, one of my kids, a sister, a friend, a specific reader with a problem). I try to write like I’m talking directly to them, and though I change the style a bit to fit my blog’s style, that’s what I have in mind as I write. This has the added benefit of not being as scary – you’re just talking to one person.

Start with a Tiny Audience

When I started my site Zen Habits, my only readers were my mom and my wife (thanks you guys!). It wasn’t too scary to write for them. Then I got a few more readers, but by then my comfort level grew and the fear wasn’t overwhelming. Then I had 50 readers, and it was like a big group of friends, because everyone was supportive. By the time I had hundreds and then thousands of readers, I felt like I knew what I was doing (nevermind that I still don’t). One of the great things about blogging, for writers, is that your comfort level grows as your audience does.

Get Over the Idea of Perfection

We freeze up when we think of the idea that we need to write the “perfect” blog post or book, so that everyone thinks highly of us. I’m telling you now: there’s no such thing as perfect. Not everyone will think your writing is the greatest. And that’s okay. If you accept that there will be some things you do that are good, and others that are less than good, and that’s part of being a human; you can embrace a wider range of possibilities. You don’t have to hit a home run with every swing or score a goal with every touch.

Be Motivated by Learning

Why should you even attempt to write when it’s so scary? Because if you don’t do the things that you’re afraid of, you never learn anything. The best learning comes when you try something you don’t know how to do, and make mistakes, and then learn how to fix those mistakes. And then repeat. If you want safe, you give up on learning.

Be Motivated by Helping

I write because people have said it’s helpful. They like seeing how someone else solved a problem, or that it’s even possible to overcome, or at the very least they like knowing that there are other people out there going through the same thing. When people give me that kind of feedback, I feel great, and I can’t wait to do the scary thing again.

Writing is transformative. It changes you, and the reader. You get feedback from the reader and learn from them. You get accountability and you have to reflect on what you’re learning. You become greater from the attempt to overcome the fear.

There has been no greater achievement in my life, other than raising my kids, than overcoming the thunderhold of fear and writing for all of you.

***

Via: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-overcome-the-fear-of-sharing-your-writing-in-pub-1646791988

25Sep2017

Facing the Fear and Imposter Syndrome

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

One thing I really took home from the Festival of Writing 2017 is that all writers suffer from self-doubt – something refered to in Debi Alper’s Facing the Fear workshop as “The Doubt Demons”. One of these demons is Imposter Syndrome, and it’s the one that plagues me most.

People who feel like impostors believe they have somehow managed to fool others into thinking they are more capable, intelligent or talented than they ‘know’ themselves to be.”

Imposter Syndrome is the belief that you’re out of your depth, you’re not really capable, and it’s only a matter of time before other ‘real’ writers suss you out. If you suffer from this, as I do, you will regularly have thoughts that you aren’t good enough, that your writing is crap, and no one wants to read it anyway. Well, I’m here to tell you (and myself) that this is NORMAL and EVERY writer, even those who have had massive success and published loads of books, suffers with this exact same thing.

So how do we deal with it?

Well, I found a really good article from The Guardian that deals with this topic, in which Dr. Valerie Young, an internationally-recognised expert on impostor syndrome suggests the following:

1. Get to the root cause of your impostor syndrome

In order to understand why you’re not currently capable of acknowledging your skills and talents, you’ll need to explore where these feelings stem from. According to Young, feelings of low self-worth could relate to family expectations, but they could just as easily arise from studying in a competitive environment or working in creative fields. (See, what did I tell you – all creative’s suffer with this!)

2. Talk about your experience with someone you trust

You’re probably familiar with the notion that voicing worries or fears out loud will lessen the power they hold over you. “I would encourage anyone feeling that they may be experiencing imposter syndrome to talk about it with someone they trust; whether that be a professional or someone from their own circle of family and friends.”

3. Reframe your thoughts with positive self-talk

The aim of practicing positive self-talk is to learn how to manage your thoughts when an impostor moment strikes. “If you want to stop feeling like an impostor, you have to stop thinking like one,” advises Young. “We need to become consciously aware of the impostor thoughts running through our head so that we can reframe them the way a non-impostor would,” she says.

4. Learn to believe in your self-worth

“What we want is to feel confident 24/7, but that’s not how it works,” says Young. Instead she suggests learning how to act with confidence, even when you’re feeling insecure, as a way of gradually changing how you feel internally. Taking back control of a situation can also help you rediscover your self-worth.

These are all great suggestions for dealing with the demons. Personally, I find positive affirmations help – telling myself I can do this, and telling the demon to go to hell.

Other things you could try are:

Calling the demon out
Conversing with the demon
Reading back some of your best work to give yourself confidence
Distracting yourself with a good book or a positive piece of music that lifts your spirits
Talking to other writer friends who understand how it feels or can reassure you how great your writing really is

Perhaps use a combination of the above, or simply keep reminding yourself that the very fact you feel like an imposter means you are a real writer, and puts you in the same group as even the best published writers, who also suffer from the same affliction.

Here is a little anecdote from Neil Gaiman to illustrate my point, and hopefully make you feel better. It certainly helped me:

Some years ago, I was lucky enough to be invited to a gathering of great and good people: artists and scientists, writers and discoverers of things. And I felt that at any moment they would realise that I didn’t qualify to be there, among these people who had really done things.

On my second or third night there, I was standing at the back of the hall, while a musical entertainment happened, and I started talking to a very nice, polite, elderly gentleman about several things, including our shared first name. And then he pointed to the hall of people, and said words to the effect of, “I just look at all these people, and I think, what the heck am I doing here? They’ve made amazing things. I just went where I was sent.”

And I said, “Yes. But you were the first man on the moon. I think that counts for something.”

And I felt a bit better. Because if Neil Armstrong felt like an imposter, maybe everyone did. Maybe there weren’t any grown-ups, only people who had worked hard and also got lucky and were slightly out of their depth, all of us doing the best job we could, which is all we can really hope for.

You can read the full Guardian article here: https://jobs.theguardian.com/article/impostor-syndrome-and-how-to-overcome-it

23Sep2017

Why You Should Join a Writing Group

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

So you’ve decided you want to write. Perhaps you want to share a personal experience or record a little piece of history. There may be fascinating characters pushing at the edge of your consciousness and plot lines teasing you as they urge you to risk discovering where they may lead. Maybe you have already started down a writing path and you’ve arrived at a crossroads. Which way do you go and more importantly, how do you decide?

A good way to answer these questions is by joining a writing group. Here is what writer and journalist Kristin Prescott had to say on the matter:

As an emerging children’s author, I found myself at that intersection not so long ago. After almost 20 years as a news journalist I was eager to let loose the restraints of facts and current affairs and let my imagination take control. But I had no idea if I could do it. My first supporters were my family. They nudged me forward to the edge of the cliff – I took a leap of faith. I wrote starts of stories (and even a few endings), interesting scenes, character descriptions and a rhyming picture book text, but honestly, I was meandering around with no real direction. I knew I loved writing but I also knew I had a huge amount to learn. If I was going to make this my life I was going to need some help. Enter Zena Shapter, award winning author and founder of Sydney’s Northern Beaches Writers’ Group (NBWG). Zena says she started the group in 2009 in order to fill her own writing needs.

“There were plenty of local support groups that acted as cheering squads for writers, but that wasn’t going to improve my writing. I wanted serious feedback; and, since I was a full-time mum, I also wanted that feedback to be free. Starting my own group was the only way to achieve all that.”

The group meets every month and after taking some time to build my courage, I made the journey to Sydney’s Manly Wharf to meet them. It is a decision that has changed my life. The NBWG is just one of many writing groups in existence and as Zena explains, they play a crucial role for writers of all genres and abilities. Since forming the NBWG, Zena is being published more frequently and has won eight national writing competitions.

“I don’t think there will ever be an end to learning and improving as a writer, so I value every interaction I have with my writers’ group – learning from others’ experiences is so very valuable,” Zena says.

After just a single meeting, I was hooked. The critiques were thorough but ultimately positive and the members were encouraging and generous with their knowledge and experience. Soon after I joined, Zena put the call out for members interested in taking part in the “Write-a-Book-in-a-day” competition, raising money for children’s cancer charities. I’m sure mine was one of the first hands in the air. Not only did our group of ten manage to write, edit, illustrate and submit an 11,000 word children’s book in just 12 hours, our story Scribbles in the Dark also won National Best Book, National Best Illustrations and we raised the most money. As I stood at the awards ceremony to receive a certificate for the book I co-authored, I dared myself to think I might be able to do this after all.

Spurred on by my success, I decided to take on another challenge – National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This time I was flying solo and I signed up to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Once again, it quickly became clear connecting with other writers was going to be key to success. Nick Hudson was the Sydney NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison, and states being around other writers definitely keeps you motivated.

“Knowing you’re not alone, being able to discuss your story in a welcoming environment, and sitting beside people that you don’t have to explain why you write to, all makes you feel part of something bigger,” he says.

NaNoWriMo is certainly big. This year 315,000 novelists signed up for the challenge worldwide. While each region held write-ins, it was social media that tied the entire community together.

“Social media is fantastic for connecting people,” says Nick. “Checking Facebook or Twitter, those are things that people are doing anyway because they have the habit.”

Throughout the month I noticed I wasn’t alone in relying on social media to help me through the motivational dips. NaNoWriMo driven online writing marathons and sprints, combined with encouraging comments from other participants keep pushing me forward. Then as the end of the month approached, the online writing community became one giant cheer squad. Whether a person had completed 500, 5000 or 50,000 words, they were given a big pat on their virtual backs. Nick says social media helped bring people together who might otherwise never have met.

“One of the things that people discovered doing NaNoWriMo this year, is that there’s lots of people just like them, who all want to talk about writing with someone, who go through periods of low confidence in their writing, but who persist with writing through the doubt and worry.”

I’m thrilled to say I’m one of the “winners” having passed the 50,000 word target. The first draft of my children’s fantasy series is now more than half written and I intend to have it finished early in the new year.

I think this quote, shared by Nick at the start of NaNoWriMo sums up why being part of a writing community is so important:

“Everyone you meet … knows you first and foremost as a writer.”

I’m still part of the Northern Beaches Writers’ Group and the members continue to help me tear down and build my writing back up. I’ve made some fantastic writer-friends who share their successes and perhaps more importantly their rejections. Through my connections I have been appointed the editor of the Society of Women Writers NSW quarterly magazine and e-news, one of the oldest and most prestigious writer’s groups in the country. I found the right path by connecting with other writers, in person and online and I hope you do too.

Via: https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/every-writer-join-writers-group/

19Sep2017

Stephen King’s “Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully – in Ten Minutes”

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

I came across the following article by Stephen King a little while ago. I believe it was originally published in a 1986 edition of The Writer magazine and republished in the 1988 edition of The Writer’s Handbook. I reproduce it here for educational and entertainment purposes, as it’s a brilliant piece. Enjoy!

I. The First Introduction

THAT’S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy writers’ school, but I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn. It will actually take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten minutes.

II. The Story, or, How Stephen King Learned to Write

When I was a sophomore in high school, I did a sophomoric thing which got me in a pot of fairly hot water, as sophomoric didoes often do. I wrote and published a small satiric newspaper called The Village Vomit. In this little paper I lampooned a number of teachers at Lisbon (Maine) High School, where I was under instruction. These were not very gentle lampoons; they ranged from the scatological to the downright cruel.

Eventually, a copy of this little newspaper found its way into the hands of a faculty member, and since I had been unwise enough to put my name on it (a fault, some critics argue, of which I have still not been entirely cured), I was brought into the office. The sophisticated satirist had by that time reverted to what he really was: a fourteen-year-old kid who was shaking in his boots and wondering if he was going to get a suspension … what we called “a three-day vacation” in those dim days of 1964.

I wasn’t suspended. I was forced to make a number of apologies – they were warranted, but they still tasted like dog-dirt in my mouth – and spent a week in detention hall. And the guidance counselor arranged what he no doubt thought of as a more constructive channel for my talents. This was a job – contingent upon the editor’s approval – writing sports for the Lisbon Enterprise, a twelve-page weekly of the sort with which any small-town resident will be familiar. This editor was the man who taught me everything I know about writing in ten minutes. His name was John Gould – not the famed New England humorist or the novelist who wrote The Greenleaf Fires, but a relative of both, I believe.

He told me he needed a sports writer and we could “try each other out” if I wanted.

I told him I knew more about advanced algebra than I did sports.

Gould nodded and said, “You’ll learn.”

I said I would at least try to learn. Gould gave me a huge roll of yellow paper and promised me a wage of 1/2 cent per word. The first two pieces I wrote had to do with a high school basketball game in which a member of my school team broke the Lisbon High scoring record. One of these pieces was straight reportage. The second was a feature article.

I brought them to Gould the day after the game, so he’d have them for the paper, which came out Fridays. He read the straight piece, made two minor corrections, and spiked it. Then he started in on the feature piece with a large black pen and taught me all I ever needed to know about my craft. I wish I still had the piece – it deserves to be framed, editorial corrections and all – but I can remember pretty well how it looked when he had finished with it. Here’s an example:

(note: this is before the edit marks indicated on King’s original copy)

Last night, in the well-loved gymnasium of Lisbon High School, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom, known as “Bullet” Bob for both his size and accuracy, scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed … and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his knight-like quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon thinclads since 1953….

(after edit marks)

Last night, in the Lisbon High School gymnasium, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed … and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon’s basketball team since 1953….

When Gould finished marking up my copy in the manner I have indicated above, he looked up and must have seen something on my face. I think he must have thought it was horror, but it was not: it was revelation.

“I only took out the bad parts, you know,” he said. “Most of it’s pretty good.”

“I know,” I said, meaning both things: yes, most of it was good, and yes, he had only taken out the bad parts. “I won’t do it again.”

“If that’s true,” he said, “you’ll never have to work again. You can do this for a living.” Then he threw back his head and laughed.

And he was right; I am doing this for a living, and as long as I can keep on, I don’t expect ever to have to work again.

III. The Second Introduction

All of what follows has been said before. If you are interested enough in writing to be a purchaser of this magazine, you will have either heard or read all (or almost all) of it before. Thousands of writing courses are taught across the United States each year; seminars are convened; guest lecturers talk, then answer questions, then drink as many gin and tonics as their expense-fees will allow, and it all boils down to what follows.

I am going to tell you these things again because often people will only listen – really listen – to someone who makes a lot of money doing the thing he’s talking about. This is sad but true. And I told you the story above not to make myself sound like a character out of a Horatio Alger novel but to make a point: I saw, I listened, and I learned. Until that day in John Gould’s little office, I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run 2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words. Following that day, my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.

So here it is, with all the bark stripped off. It’ll take ten minutes to read, and you can apply it right away … if you listen.

IV. Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully

1. Be talented
This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with “what is the meaning of life?” for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success – publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented. Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We’re not talking about good or bad here. I’m interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who’s good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check’s been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn’t get paid. If you’re not talented, you won’t succeed. And if you’re not succeeding, you should know when to quit. When is that? I don’t know. It’s different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it’s time you tried painting or computer programming. Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer – you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call. It’s lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices … unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you’ll know which way to go … or when to turn back.

2. Be neat
Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you’ve marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.

3. Be self-critical
If you haven’t marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don’t be a slob.

4. Remove every extraneous word
You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can’t find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . . . or try something new.

5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft
You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right – and breaking your train of thought and the writer’s trance in the bargain – or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don’t have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

6. Know the markets
Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall’s. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy … but people do it all the time. I’m not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn’t just a matter of knowing what’s right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine’s entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.

7. Write to entertain
Does this mean you can’t write “serious fiction”? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.

8. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”
The answer needn’t always be yes. But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new project or a new career.

9. How to evaluate criticism
Show your piece to a number of people – ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story – a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles – change that facet. It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone – or even most everyone – is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

10. Observe all rules for proper submission
Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.

11. An agent? Forget it. For now
Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you’ve done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King’s First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don’t need one until you’re making enough for someone to steal … and if you’re making that much, you’ll be able to take your pick of good agents.

12. If it’s bad, kill it
When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

That’s everything you need to know. And if you listened, you can write everything and anything you want. Now I believe I will wish you a pleasant day and sign off.

My ten minutes are up.

Via: http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/stephen-king-everything-you-need-to-know-about-writing-successfully/

18Sep2017

11 Tips For Finding Your Writing Zone

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

As the great Dorothy Parker once said, “writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat”. If only it were so simple. Every writer knows the struggle of setting aside the time to write, sitting down at the computer, opening a new document in your word processor of choice… and then realising that four hours have gone by and you’ve done nothing but watch unboxing videos on YouTube and stalk your ex’s hot cousin on Instagram. Writing is hard. Getting into the right frame of mind for writing is hard. Staying on task and not being distracted by your own crippling fear of failure is hard. So, here are a few tips for getting into the writing zone, because you can’t just sit around waiting for inspiration to strike (trust me, I’ve tried).

Of course, the “writing zone” looks different for everyone. Some writers work best in the dead of night, churning out page after page in a writing frenzy as they chug energy drinks and cookie dough. Other writers like to wake up at the crack of dawn to take a contemplative walk, or write every afternoon come rain or shine, or spend hours mumbling to themselves in their characters’ voices. There’s no wrong way to write. But here are some tips for finding a way into your own, personal writing zone:

1. Create a ritual

You don’t have to sacrifice a lamb to the writing gods every time you sit down to write, but sometimes it helps to have a small ritual transition between normal-you and writer-you. Maybe you light a candle, or make yourself a cup of coffee. Maybe you start by writing out a description of your week so far, or you put on your favourite shade of lipstick, or you straighten up your desk. Try out a couple of different rituals if you need to, and find what gets you psyched up/chilled out enough to write.

2. Find your ideal time of day

Are you an early riser or a night owl? Try setting aside writing time first thing in the morning, in the mid-afternoon, and right before bed to see which works best for you. Then stick with that time as much as you can. Sometimes finding your writing zone is as simple as finding the right hour of the day to start writing.

3. Find your ideal writing environment

If you know that you write best in a coffee shop, find a local coffee shop and become a regular. If you write best at your own desk, make sure that it stays relatively neat. If you like to write from bed, then… just do that, I guess. And if you can’t force yourself to start writing alone, find a writer buddy so the two of you can sit there and suffer together.

4. Find your music

Some people can only write in dead silence, others like to write while blasting out Celtic rock. Whatever your musical tastes, find a reliable writing playlist for yourself. You could try listening to the radio, movie soundtracks, or even classical music if lyrics are going to be too much of a distraction. Even if you don’t like to write with music, having a pump up or chill out song to get you into the zone can help focus your energy on your manuscript instead of work/stress/the guy who’s currently ghosting you.

5. Go off the grid

Put your phone on airplane mode. Turn off your computer’s Wi-Fi. Tell your friends you’ll be out of reach for the afternoon. If you need to, download a self-control app that’ll shut you out of distracting websites. I promise that you’ll survive life off the grid, and you’ll find it much harder to procrastinate without the world wide web at your fingertips.

6. Get out of the house

Remember outside? The air moves out there. It’s pretty great. If you’ve been spending the whole day in bed, or staring at a screen, or lying motionless on the floor, you might want to try going for an old fashioned walk. Grab a notebook and walk to the park/beach, or even around the block. Go for a run if that’s your thing. Go buy yourself a new flavor of ice cream. If you’re really feeling ambitious, leave your phone at home. Just getting out of the house and moving your body might help you refocus and start thinking about how to start that next chapter.

7. Give yourself incentives

Unfortunately, we don’t always have unlimited time to stroll through the park or try out different writing spots. Many of us have to work at “jobs” to earn “money” for “rent.” So if you need a shortcut to get yourself writing, you can always bribe yourself with some kind of treat: if you write 500 words today, you get to take a bubble bath, or watch the next episode of your favourite show; 1,000 words, you treat yourself to lunch; 5,000 words, you buy that cute item of clothing/new bag/pair of shoes you saw. (Use this method sparingly, though, because it gets expensive fast!)

8. Get rid of excess energy

I am forever making other people nervous with my pacing, foot jiggling, and hand wringing. If you tend to have a lot of excess energy, try jumping jacks or yoga before you dive back into writing. Stretch. Breathe. Invest in a standing desk, or a fidget spinner, or silly putty, so that you’re not just sitting motionless as you try to come up with ideas. You’ll be surprised just how much easier it is to stay in that zone when you’re not bursting with restless energy.

9. Read

If you just aren’t in the mood to write, try reading. Get another author’s voice inside your head, and you’ll find it a lot easier to start putting words on paper yourself. Every writer needs books to fuel their weird writer brains. And while it can be hard to go from watching TV or talking with friends to writing the next Great Novel, going from reading to writing is the most natural transition in the world.

10. Be consistent

Stick with it. If you train yourself to write at the same time every day, or every other day, or even every week, chances are it’s going to get easier and easier to get into the zone. Make your writing time sacred. It’s not just free time that you’re using to write, it’s your daily allotment of writing time, and it must be respected. Write something during every session, even if it’s just a list of ideas.

11. Write your way into the zone

Don’t underestimate the power of a good free-write. Not in the right creative mood to revise your poetry chapbook? Too bad. Just start writing whichever words come to your brain, until some of those words start to take shape as ideas. Free yourself from the need to write “well,” and just write. Write like nobody’s reading. Don’t beat yourself up if you write for a solid hour and none of it is usable. Count it as a success, because you were able to start writing and keep writing, and that’s no mean feat.

Happy writing!

***

Via: https://www.bustle.com/p/11-tips-for-finding-your-writing-zone

16Sep2017

5 Reasons Why You Should Share Your Writing

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

Writing means sharing. It’s part of the human condition to want to share things – thoughts, ideas, opinions.” – Paulo Coelho

All writers are in some part afraid or reluctant to share their writing with others, be it friends, family, colleagues, or strangers. However, writing is meant to be read. It’s meant to be performed, heard and experienced. So don’t keep it to yourself. This article is all about putting your writing out there and how it will help you learn and grow as a writer. Here are five reasons why you should share your writing…

1. Get Valuable Feedback

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.” – Winston Churchill

We can never be the best judge on our own writing – we’ve spent too much time with it and are too emotionally attached in most cases. This is why we need feedback. Having someone else read your work is a great way to find out what’s working and what’s not. Is the character ‘real’? Is the setting clear? Are the rhymes contrived or natural? A fresh mind will pick out flaws quickly, and note if the writing is confusing, convoluted, or careless. Sharing your draft is the only way of knowing if the message you want to convey with your writing is getting across to the reader.

It’s important though, to carefully choose who will see your writing. There’s no point forcing it upon friends who don’t read a lot or aren’t particularly interested in what you do, just as there is no point handing your manuscript over to your mother, who will most likely tell you it’s fantastic, no matter what she really thinks… These people may be better utilised as proof-readers. For true feedback, the best people to show your work to are your contemporaries, other writers who know the process and can give you valuable advice and clarification. If you have an editor, that’s even better. Otherwise, anyone with an insatiable appetite for literature will work as a general indicator.

2. Increase Your Confidence

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” – Erma Bombeck

To write well one has to write confidently, but confidence can be cripplingly absent for a lot of writers. It’s never easy to hand over sweat-and-tear-soaked efforts for someone else to critique. However it is something all authors have to come to terms with. Constructive criticism is a vital stretch of road on the path to publication and is the only way of knowing what your strengths and weaknesses are. Gaining feedback will increase your understanding of your own writing and allow you to perfect your writing process. Reading your work aloud at groups or events will open up many opportunities for you to seek out the analysis you need from others. Not to mention the public speaking practice you’ll need for when you’re a bestselling author.

3. Learn and be Inspired

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go”- Dr. Seuss

It’s well documented that children learn a lot from observing and playing with each other. The same can be said of writers. The more you read, the more ideas will spark and the more you’ll write. What better way is there to learn than from other writers of your generation?

If you ask your colleagues to take a look at your work it’s very likely they’ll request the same of you. Ideally this will lead to a regular exchange between a number of you. By networking in this way you’ll be reading the freshest material there is. Again this will provide you with feedback on your work. In this situation it will be especially useful as you will begin to see if particular issues with your writing crop up repeatedly, and you’ll learn what criticism you find most helpful. The best feedback is one that provides suggestions and options to any problems you may be having because it allows you to take a new line of thinking while reworking the material in your own way.

4. Influence An Audience

A drop of ink may make a million think.” – George Gordon Byron

Writing really can change the way people think and feel. It’s a major reason why writers write and readers read. They want to introduce and be introduced to new ideas and powerful emotions.

Your writing may mean as much to someone else as it does to you. We write about things that are important to us or things we feel strongly about. It may be something that scares us, a political stance, emotional turmoil, etc. How many times have you been reading only to stop and think about how a particular paragraph reminded you of your own life? You can offer that same experience to others.

When you share your writing with someone they will ideally be able to tell you how it made them feel and how they were able to relate to it. Hearing this will instil in you the fact your writing isn’t just words, it’s an organism. The more people read it, the more it lives.

Even if you set out to write solely for yourself, to remain stable and centred, the potential to connect to a reader should be too much to ignore. It’s no exaggeration to say that words can save lives (some have completely changed this author’s perspective) and no one should hold that power within themselves.

5. It’s Your Job

You’re not really a writer unless people are reading your shit.” – Pearl Madison, The United States Of Leland

Despite the embarrassment that sometimes plagues us when we tell people we are a writer, and the occasional sniggers or blank nods that follow, writing has to be a job. You have to take your writing seriously if you want to succeed. You have to treat it like work, even if you already have a ‘day’ job.

Sharing your work is a job requirement if you want to call yourself a writer. It’s part of the process that leads to publication, acknowledgement and renown. You wouldn’t skimp on important tasks at your other jobs, so don’t hold out on this one.

Ultimately there are few negatives to sharing your work. You will gain exposure, learn new techniques, find inspiration, make friends and contacts, raise your self-esteem all while undertaking a worthy pursuit called writing.

Via: https://writersedit.com/fiction-writing/5-compelling-reasons-share-writing/amp/

15Sep2017

Transworld Sign 70-Year-Old Debut Author

Posted in Articles, Blog by Abigayle Blood

Here is a heartwarming piece of news that should put hope in your heart and a tear in your eye, and just goes to prove you can be published at any age with the right story. Enjoy!

A debut novel by 70-year-old Anne Youngson has been pre-empted by Transworld and is set to become the publisher’s lead fiction title for summer 2018.

Transworld editorial director Jane Lawson pre-empted UK and Commonwealth rights including Canada to Meet Me At The Museum, described as “the gentlest, most humane and emotional” novel, from Judith Murray at Greene & Heaton, just 48 hours after receiving the submission.

Meet Me at the Museum tells of a man and a woman with more of their life behind them than ahead, who find new beginnings when they connect unexpectedly through a mutual love of ancient history, personal treasures and nature.

Lawson said it was rare for her to fall for a novel so “instantly and irrevocably”.

“Anne Youngson has created an enduring novel of ideas, full of grace and humanity, and charged with emotion”, said Lawson. “I realised as soon as I started this novel that I would not stop until I had acquired it. And I am fortunate to have a superb team at Transworld who read overnight and loved it equally”.

Youngson said: “It is astonishing and thrilling in equal measure to have my first novel selected for publication by the team at Doubleday. My agent advised me not to hesitate to accept their offer and she was right. I have been so impressed with the passion and professionalism they have brought to the process (all new to me) of moving towards publication. I feel truly privileged to have this opportunity to develop another career, and I plan to take full advantage of it.”

Youngson, a debut novelist who is just turning 70-years-old, worked at a senior level in product development at a major car company. “It is all the more surprising therefore that after so many years in the cut and thrust of a high-pressure day job, Anne has produced the gentlest, most humane and emotional novel”, the publisher said. Since then she has also supported many charities in governance roles, including Chair of the Writers in Prison Network. She lives in Oxfordshire with her husband.

Transworld will publish in Doubleday hardback on 14th June 2018, backed by a “major impact” publicity campaign.

Via: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/transworld-snaps-most-humane-debut-summer-2018

12Sep2017

Writer’s Workshop: Festival of Writing

Posted in Blog, Writing by Abigayle Blood

This weekend, I attended the fabulous Festival of Writing in York. It was, as ever, a valuable weekend of learning, feedback, and meeting new and old writer friends. To give you a taste of how amazing it was, here is a post from Julie Crisp, who taught at the FoW:

I spent a rather lovely weekend doing some of my favourite things: meeting new authors and talking about books and publishing. This was my first time attending The Festival of Writing in York and, as such, I wasn’t sure quite what to expect. I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be quite as BIG with so many enthusiastic attendees.

I did two workshops and a series of one-to-ones. For anyone who knows me – they’ll know how much I hate public speaking. I always over prepare and spend far too much time worrying about having an unreceptive or unresponsive audience . . . a lecture hall filled with empty seats and a long awkward silence. Thankfully – there was none of that!

The first workshop I did was: How to Get an Agent: The Dos and Dont’s. Trying to come up with something fresh to say when there’s SO much information on the Internet about it (Juliet Mushens’ post on it is especially good), is always difficult. But the authors attending were fabulous. Lots of great ideas and information were exchanged and it was chatty, informal, and lots of fun. I may have been buzzing and gabbling a bit from the caffeine overdose but no one seemed to mind.

One of the most interesting questions for me as both editor and agent was: Who has the final say in the direction your novel is going? Who decides what can be kept and what gets changed? My personal answer to that is: You. The author. Agents and Editors are not there to rewrite your entire work to fit a template of their own making. They are not there to shoehorn it in a direction that you don’t agree with. What they will try to do is help you shape it into something that fits within commercial expectations. They’ll have a vision that uses those ideas and structures in the book that work and help you to take it a step further.

And for anyone attending that who wanted to know what a good pitch letter to me looks like then this is it:

THE PITCH LETTER

Dear (get the name right please),

1) One paragraph of an introduction to the book (listing the market, genre and readership you’re aiming at) and maybe one line or so about why you choose this agent. If it starts to feel like you’re following a script or template just keep the letter brief, businesslike and to the point. I’d much prefer succinct professionalism than overwriting.

2) A paragraph or two (more than that starts to feel like a retelling of the novel) about the book. The best pitches for me are those which read like cover copy rather than a synopsis…so a shoutline and then brief description.

3) A paragraph about yourself listing any relevant writing credits – look at published author bios – this is what you should be aiming at. Don’t over share!

Yours,

I also did a series of one-to-one meetings which I thoroughly enjoyed. I LOVE offering editorial feedback. It’s one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. There were some brilliant concepts. Lots of wonderful writing. I don’t think I totally ruined anyone’s day. At least no one left in tears so that’s always a plus! And I did ask for one complete script which I’m eagerly awaiting.

The Gala dinner was great, I got to catch-up with a few friends and make some new ones. But I did dash halfway through so could finish prepping for my workshop the next day.

Again, despite the large turnout – it felt like a really friendly, informative, sharing workshop. Everyone had ideas and thoughts about what worked to market your book on social media. I’d put a suvey poll on Twitter the night before.

So it was interesting to see that the hit rate for readers being influenced by social media in book sales was about 50% for those who participated, bearing in mind my usual followers are pretty book engaged. If it went out to a larger spread of people I’d expect it to go down…what we do know from the workshop is that no one likes the hard sell. Not from authors or publishers. And that the time you spend on Social Media will rarely result in equivalent book sales. If you’re interested in the rest of the presentation you can find it here. It’s rough notes but could be useful. There are loads of great articles on the web though which go into a lot more detail than mine about how to market your book online.

All in all I thought the Festival was fabulous. The Writer’s Workshop organised everything brilliantly and were happy to help wherever they could. I can see why it’s such a popular festival and why so many authors return year after year. It’s great for contacts, networking, up-to-date information, advice and support. As Tor Udall, author of A Thousand Paper Birds said, ‘I sit in workshops at #FoW17 and I still learn.’

Don’t we all.

Hope everyone enjoyed it and found it as useful as I did.

I certainly did.

See the original post here: http://www.juliecrisp.co.uk/writers-workshop-festival-of-writing

9Sep2017

How To Keep Writing In Tough Times

Posted in Articles, Blog by Abigayle Blood

If you’ve found yourself in the midst of a difficult season, what can you do to keep moving forward with your writing? Here are 3 ways to keep writing through adversity:

1. Think About Your Priorities

Consider what exactly is going on in your life and understand the time demands that come from it. Maybe you’re getting married and the planning is time consuming… but you’ve got this novel you just don’t want to let go of for a few months. Getting married is quite different than being stuck in a hospital for the better part of five months, and your time restrictions are going to be different. Whatever your tough situation, think about what you want to achieve. Maybe you can only spare ten minutes a day to write a few paragraphs. But hey, it’s a start!

2. Outline Your Goals

This is where you look at where you want to take your writing career, and realistically try to figure out how to keep writing and stay on track. Do you want an agent, a publishing deal, etc. Because all of that is going to require a time commitment. Working on your goals, and figure out how those work alongside the other needs and commitments you have in your life.

3. Always Be Doing Something – Even if It’s Not Writing

There are loads of positive things you can be doing to keep your head in the game. Read, listen to podcasts, or check out blog posts from other writers – to name but a few.

There are a lot of great writing podcasts out there:

When adversity strikes, you don’t have to let your writing fall by the wayside. But it will if you let it. However, you can not only continue on with your goals in the face of harrowing times, you can amaze others with your work ethic. The tenacity to push through is something almost everyone will admire. It’s also a really good feeling as a writer.

If you can get through adverse times and figure out how to keep writing, you’ll find it that much easier to carve out time on days when you’re not in the middle of a trial.

***

Read the full article here: https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-keep-writing/

8Sep2017

Top 10 Plot Twists In Fiction | The Guardian

Posted in Articles, Blog by Abigayle Blood

The word “twist” exerts a strange power over crime fiction addicts like me. Publishers know this all too well, which is why the promise of a twist is often used to advertise books that don’t have twists at all. “You’ll never see the breathtaking twist coming!” screams the press release. Well, no, you won’t, because it doesn’t exist. And so many people think a brilliant resolution is the same thing as a twist. It isn’t. Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express offers the most impressive puzzle solution in all of detective fiction. But, however ingenious and surprising, it’s not a twist ending.

So what is a bona fide twist? In my view, it has to be something that overturns or negates an already drawn conclusion or a firmly entrenched and reasonable assumption (Orient Express overturns an unreasonable assumption on the part of the reader, which is why I wouldn’t call it a twist).

Writing a twist isn’t an exact science, but part of what makes the brilliant ones so attractive in fiction is that feeling of having everything you thought you knew reversed, inverted or demolished; the fictional equivalent of being on a rollercoaster that suddenly turns upside down, leaving everything looking and feeling very different for the rest of the ride. And the new picture created by the shake-up of the twist has to be one that makes sense and is not risible. For example, if you find out at the end of the novel that the murderer is not the person whose fingerprints were on the knife, but rather his long-dead second cousin who developed marvellous fingerprint-forging technology unknown to science or the reader – that’s not a twist, it’s a travesty.

It’s going to be very hard to do this without spoilers, but I will try. In my opinion, these are 10 excellent examples of novels with genuine twists:

1. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
A moving, complex moral-dilemma story about a girl who takes her family to court in order to win the right to refuse a life-saving bone marrow transplant to her dying sister. What’s great about the twist is that you were neither waiting nor hoping for it – the story feels totally satisfying and complete without it – and yet when it arrives, you realise that there was a carefully and subtly carved space all throughout the novel for that perfect twist to fit into.

2. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
A psychological suspense classic about a woman who marries a man she adores, only to discover that he, his home and his staff are apparently still obsessed by his far more charismatic first wife, to whom our heroine fears she can never measure up. Without revealing anything that’s gone before to be a lie, the twist changes the meaning of everything we’ve seen so far and provides the novel with an exemplary and memorable resolution.

3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Not all superb twists need to come at the end. There’s a twist in the middle of this classic novel that takes it to another level of passion, intrigue and excitement. There are hints before the big reveal, but not even the most imaginative reader would dare to imagine the truth. Twists in the middles of stories rather than at their ends tend to say: “And what do we all think now?” rather than, “So THIS is what we’re supposed to think!” – and this one does that brilliantly.

4. Before I Go to Sleep by SJ Watson
An unputdownable novel about a woman who loses her memory every night as she sleeps, and wakes each next morning remembering nothing. The author expertly leads the reader to assume that there is a binary choice in terms of who and what to suspect, and then reveals at the last moment that there is a third and even more terrifying possibility…

5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
You can tell when a twist is brilliant, because copycats spring up all over. The twist at the end of Lionel Shriver’s masterpiece about a school shooting and a difficult mother-son relationship is one that literally takes your breath away. I’ve read two novels since that have copied and pasted Shriver’s twist as if it hadn’t been done before (or perhaps they simply hadn’t read Kevin!). Either way, neither of the copycats used the twist with Shriver’s panache.

6. Innocent Blood by PD James
I know I don’t have to choose a No 1 – this is, after all, a top 10 – but this novel contains my favourite twist in all of crime fiction. Halfway through this story of an adopted young woman determined to trace her biological parents, there is a twist that made me leap up off my sun-lounger and yell at random holiday makers that they needed to read this book urgently. I won’t say any more – just, please, read it.

7. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane
This novel about a US Marshal trapped on an island, trying to find an escaped murderer in a sanatorium, has a twist of such audacity, I’m not sure I’d have dared, but I’m very glad Lehane did. It’s so bold and all-encompassing, it’s perfect.

8. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
This brilliant thriller contains a meta-twist, devised and inflicted by a central character within the novel rather than by the author herself. It’s a middle-twist rather than an end-twist, and the character responsible spends much of the novel afterward boasting about it. It works exceptionally well.

9. The Secret House of Death by Ruth Rendell
A brilliant crime novel by one of the UK’s finest crime writers, in which the murder itself is the twist. You won’t understand what I mean by that – so you must read the book! The last line, which underscores how profoundly the reader has been fooled, sent a shiver down my spine.

10. Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris
I’m not sure all readers would recognise that this is a twist-based story, but it is. It twists our expectations of the entire psychological thriller genre. The novel begins as a portrait of a marriage in which the wife seems to be a little nervous around her husband… What could possibly be going on? Is he abusive? Does she have a guilty secret? I liked this novel from the start, but a few chapters in, one of the main characters provides information that’s so startling, it shakes up all of the reader’s expectations about the genre they think they’re reading, making the rest of the story all the more exciting.

So there you have it – I hope these have whetted your appetite. If you haven’t yet read them, add them to your TBR pile immediately! Happy reading 🙂

Via: https://amp.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/16/top-10-twists-in-fiction