Yesterday, I was walking up a trail when I encountered a person who asked me to hold my dog so she could pass. “Sure!” I said, and called Tock away from a bush he was sniffing about twenty feet off the trail. Once he got to my side, I snapped on his leash and held him there until the woman had hurried by.
Interesting, Wendy. I get scared at the querying stage. My work is never ready, never good enough. Too scary to send it out! I love your idea of pre-writing. I do that, too, but later in the process -- I interview my characters to find out more about their lives than I'd already learned during the writing.
I read this after taking my big pup Ryder for his second walk of the day. Not because he was begging for another one, but as his human I needed to get back on top of the training that makes him such a great therapy dog. He turned two in October and started becoming a teenager. This is great advice for us humans too! I haven’t even tried to write fiction. Way too scared to do that!
I love this piece, Wendy! Such great advice on how to get past that blank page. I'm putting together an online course about just that fear--there are so many aspects to it but also ways to get past it, and your ideas can be very helpful. Like Kim I write nonfiction, which at least can give you a built-in framework for getting started. But with either nonfiction or fiction, your words are just yours until you choose to share them, so actually getting something "down on paper" doesn't have to be scary--you are the only person who sees it or even knows it exists until you choose to share. You can keep it, share it, erase it, whatever you choose, depending on whether or not it "works." Keeping that in mind can help some writers let open up the dam and let those words pour out!
I love this poignant essay and the beautiful photographs. To challenge our creativity, we must get out of our comfort zone, so as to fully unravel and become better creators. There is no progress in sitting still. Even healing from trauma requires doing uncomfortable things and a lot of work.
Two writing tips I've enjoyed using (both via YouTube talks I can't find at the moment); one was from Kurt Vonnegut -- love his guidance; he said 'develop really great characters and then make terrible things happen to them - and then write about how they deal with them and you'll learn what your character is really made of. The other, from Roger Rosenblatt - he sets a classroom scene with students struggling to 'get started' - he prepped them that he would give them a prompt; and then when least expected, the slammed the classroom door hard and yelled, "WRITE" ... and the pieces (he described some) that resulted were spectacular. He tells the story far better than I could. And funnier too. So, slam a door!
Great advice! Did you start a new novel? Love the photos of Tok. On our walk yesterday, Apollo was terrified of a standing orange sign warning of flooding. I tried to let him sniff it. He’s usually not fearful. Maybe a reflection of how I’ve been feeling about some of my chapters?
As usual I love your posts, Wendy. I always think of it as jumping off a cliff. And it doesn't seem as scary as the part where you know it's pretty good, you've had it critiqued a lot, and you need to make some big changes that may change everything - either for the better or for the worse.
A couple of things: 1. Maybe that woman was walking that trail to try to overcome her fear of dogs (which might stem from a past event). 2. I find far scarier times in rereading what I've written than in starting something new. Like revisiting a place where I used to live, I could be faced with horrors or delights. Usually it's a mix of both. Happy Trails and Tales!
Great post! And I totally agree that the first couple of chapters are the worst. I'm definitely the type of writer who needs to churn forward regardless of whatever excuses my mind might come up with. If I don't, it will never get done, and that's a place I don't want to go right now. So I tell myself over and over that I don't need to write a chapter, I just need to write one sentence. And then another sentence. I find that I can always do that. Eventually, the dam breaks.
Interesting, Wendy. I get scared at the querying stage. My work is never ready, never good enough. Too scary to send it out! I love your idea of pre-writing. I do that, too, but later in the process -- I interview my characters to find out more about their lives than I'd already learned during the writing.
I read this after taking my big pup Ryder for his second walk of the day. Not because he was begging for another one, but as his human I needed to get back on top of the training that makes him such a great therapy dog. He turned two in October and started becoming a teenager. This is great advice for us humans too! I haven’t even tried to write fiction. Way too scared to do that!
I love this piece, Wendy! Such great advice on how to get past that blank page. I'm putting together an online course about just that fear--there are so many aspects to it but also ways to get past it, and your ideas can be very helpful. Like Kim I write nonfiction, which at least can give you a built-in framework for getting started. But with either nonfiction or fiction, your words are just yours until you choose to share them, so actually getting something "down on paper" doesn't have to be scary--you are the only person who sees it or even knows it exists until you choose to share. You can keep it, share it, erase it, whatever you choose, depending on whether or not it "works." Keeping that in mind can help some writers let open up the dam and let those words pour out!
I love this poignant essay and the beautiful photographs. To challenge our creativity, we must get out of our comfort zone, so as to fully unravel and become better creators. There is no progress in sitting still. Even healing from trauma requires doing uncomfortable things and a lot of work.
Two writing tips I've enjoyed using (both via YouTube talks I can't find at the moment); one was from Kurt Vonnegut -- love his guidance; he said 'develop really great characters and then make terrible things happen to them - and then write about how they deal with them and you'll learn what your character is really made of. The other, from Roger Rosenblatt - he sets a classroom scene with students struggling to 'get started' - he prepped them that he would give them a prompt; and then when least expected, the slammed the classroom door hard and yelled, "WRITE" ... and the pieces (he described some) that resulted were spectacular. He tells the story far better than I could. And funnier too. So, slam a door!
Great advice! Did you start a new novel? Love the photos of Tok. On our walk yesterday, Apollo was terrified of a standing orange sign warning of flooding. I tried to let him sniff it. He’s usually not fearful. Maybe a reflection of how I’ve been feeling about some of my chapters?
Yes!
Yes, I will. We keep encouraging each other and that helps tremendously.
As usual I love your posts, Wendy. I always think of it as jumping off a cliff. And it doesn't seem as scary as the part where you know it's pretty good, you've had it critiqued a lot, and you need to make some big changes that may change everything - either for the better or for the worse.
A couple of things: 1. Maybe that woman was walking that trail to try to overcome her fear of dogs (which might stem from a past event). 2. I find far scarier times in rereading what I've written than in starting something new. Like revisiting a place where I used to live, I could be faced with horrors or delights. Usually it's a mix of both. Happy Trails and Tales!
Great post! And I totally agree that the first couple of chapters are the worst. I'm definitely the type of writer who needs to churn forward regardless of whatever excuses my mind might come up with. If I don't, it will never get done, and that's a place I don't want to go right now. So I tell myself over and over that I don't need to write a chapter, I just need to write one sentence. And then another sentence. I find that I can always do that. Eventually, the dam breaks.