As I was reading Jeff Seymour’s recent blog (https://rmfw.org/my-names-jeff-and-im-a-failure-by-jeff-seymour), I was struck by the thought that for a writer, there are all kinds of ways for demoralization and discouragement to find their way in and poison your life. Jeff describes his sense of failure in terms of sales and income, in other words, his writing…
Tag: motivation
My Secret Battle With Writer’s Block
For the first twenty years I wrote fiction, I didn’t understand when people spoke of “writer’s block”. Of course there were times when I got stuck, and it took me a day or two to figure out where to go with a story. But usually, when I sat down to write, the words flowed. It…
Attitude
Another note-to-self in the form of a blog … I’ll cut to the chase: what we do is a choice. We put ourselves in this situation—“forced” to think about stories and characters and plots and craft. The burden of it all; the agony! The tortured artist at work–just look. Over there in the corner, writhing…
What’s Your Plan for 2015?
Time is not linear for me. It expands and shrinks according to its own irrational whims, and if I don’t pay attention I’ll suddenly look at a calendar and it will be November and I won’t have moved any closer to my ultimate writing career goals.
Making a Big Deal Out of It
As writers, we spend a lot of time beating ourselves up. That story wasn’t good enough, we didn’t finish it on time, it didn’t sell to our market of choice, it got a bad review, I’m just not happy with it… etc. etc. Too often, we forget what a monumental undertaking writing is in the…