If you go through life free of bad habits, you won’t live forever, but it will feel like it. In my neverending research into what makes a good writer, rather than me actually writing, a number of things began to present themselves about the way authors conduct themselves these days, certainly as opposed to the lives some of our predecessors. These days the early life of the writer is mostly disciplined and planned by demanding publishers. Especially when there are twenty authors waiting for their shot should one get a little too big for their britches after their first success. [Read more…]
Writers are Weird: Writer’s Routines (Part Two)
November 16, 2009. 1 Comment
An eclectic bunch of Brits today, and this time I don’t mean me. The great, the surreal and the genius! Will Self is an elaborate and intricate writer so you would think that his prose would need complete silence at almost monasterial levels. However, his approach is even more complex than his writing. Apart from working on a manual typewriter (quaint yet what a pain in the ass) as early in the morning as possible he works on multiple drafts at the same time. He waits until the first draft is 80% finished and then draft two and subsequently draft [Read more…]
27 Writing Quotes, 1 for Every Occaision (ish)
October 13, 2009. 2 Comments
A quick and dirty list of some of my favourite writing quotes for you to use in any article, post, diatribe, speech, dedication, mantra or bellow to the heavens. Hope you enjoy and feel free to add your own in the comments! Ambition 1. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. C.S. Lewis The Aging Writer 2. With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs. James Thurber 3. If you can’t annoy somebody, there’s little point in [Read more…]
The Flow!
October 11, 2009. 1 Comment
OK, that’s enough putting it off, we have to sit down and get on with it. However, now that I have explored what it is to have ambition, be inspired and then become a procrastinator, where do we go? Where can we go? Productivity isn’t something that you switch on and off as a writer, you have to achieve the zen like state of ‘Flow’. We’ve all experienced it, that feeling that you may never finish typing because the words aren’t just flowing out of you they are somehow jumping out before you barely think of them. It’s that glorious [Read more…]
Procrastination
August 31, 2009. 3 Comments
Right, we are now inspired to produce scribblings of the finest prose so we must get to the keyboard and begin. We’ve finished the school run and kissed our partners farewell until the evening so we have the rest of follow our inspiration wherever they may lead us. The day lies before us like a glorious canvas and we have many vivid colours to spray around like Jackson Pollock on a particularly inspired day. Let’s get going! 0910 – Well, whilst I make for the computer to boot we may as well open the post whilst I wait for the [Read more…]
Where does Inspiration come from?
August 2, 2009. 1 Comment
OK, so now you have your ambition and a clear idea of what you want to write and why you want to write it. You also have in mind what that success is going to look like; be it money, prestige, intellectual plaudits or even becoming attractive, you know know what it is you want. And now you want your writing to take you there. So, you sit at your keyboard with an expectant grin and and a heart full of hope and you begin typing. Then you stop. Then you start again for a while and then you stop again. [Read more…]
What Are Your Ambitions?
July 21, 2009. 3 Comments
Can you remember the point in your life when you thought, “I want to make a living from writing”? Whether it be paid blogger, an article writer, a journalist, a novelist or screenplay writer; was there an actual clear as a bell lightning strike from the creative heavens? It’s difficult not romanticise yourself gently placing down your finished copy of ‘The Great Gatsby’ and staring off toward the setting sun, breathing the words, “I hear your words Mr Fitzgerald and I answer your call. I will take up your mantle and write the next great American novel.” When your realisations [Read more…]
My Pitch
July 3, 2009. 9 Comments
Good day to you all and welcome to my first real post. Thank you for the messages of welcome and good luck, it was very much appreciated and immediately made me feel part of this fine community. However, to all of you that didn’t wish me well, I ask you all in turn, why do you hate me already? I am a very fragile person and prone to spilling out my insecurities and personality disorders directly onto the page. If you don’t automatically love me and my writing I am liable to write great screeds of self loathing, angst ridden [Read more…]
