Replace the word can’t with can. Know that you can, believe that you can, and know will ALL of your heart that you will. You will succeed in spite of any obstacles that may try to hinder you! There’s so much power in having a positive attitude, positive mindset, and positive outlook.
An author is similar to an actor. They play many characters in their lives—photographer, nurse, dancer, doctor, writer, etc. As an author, you have to learn your craft, know each and every element to become that character you’re writing about to be able to live and breathe what they do.
I write so others might contemplate things that are out of the ordinary. I write to make people feel—to cause laughter and tears and anger at injustice. I write so the world will imagine and wonder at crazy, incredible truths. I write to have a tiny bit of influence on a universal conscience.
There are days when writing is within my power and a story unfolds along a course I've already chosen. And then there are days when the words breathe on their own and take me by the hand, leading me along unfathomed paths. Either way, the end result is this author's fairytale.
Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.
Letting go looks different for everyone, I think. Sometimes it's as simple as waking up one day and deciding not to let your past rule you. Other times it's a process; slow moving and painful, like trudging through a forest of thorny vines in hopes that you'll find freedom on the other side.
Brendan stopped reading. The words had melted into a liquid blur...In his possession was a box full of information that would likely fill in the gaps and help him to wrap his brain around the whys of her death. And yet, there was really only one question that mattered, and Tommy had already answered it.
I am more optimistic, both about reading and about books. There will always be non-readers, bad readers, lazy readers – there always were. Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. Yet nothing can replace the exact, complicated, subtle communion between absent author and entranced, present reader.
If I told you that my global audience has shot up 100% in the last six months, what would you say? If you were to say, “So you went from one reader to two readers?” you’d be absolutely correct. And after I had congratulated you on your keen guess, I’d thank you for being 50% of my reading base.
But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way. We look for meaning. We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do. We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and we have a job to do. We are not at peace unless we are doing it.
Creative writing is your ability to develop your inner tension, your libido, your supply of energy and electric charge, turning the charge into an image or thought, and writing down the thought, thus contributing all the activity of your mind to the immortal culture of humankind and subsequently to your own immortality.
The obsession with correct political belief and expression in art is stultifying the genre as it is necessarily exclusive. We are losing our voice in artificial, forced homogeny posing as tolerance. Propaganda-disguised-as-story drives readers away as agenda takes the place of wonder, excitement, character. and conflict.
But will you not have a house to care for? Meals to cook? Children whining for this or that? Will you have time for the work?" "I'll make time," I promised. "The house will not always be so clean, the cooking may be a little hasty, and the whining children will sit on my lap and I'll sing to them while I work.
I reached into the pile and pulled out a few connected chips and then was about to shove them into my mouth, when I saw what appeared to be the face of an angel sitting next to me. And, if it was in fact my actual guardian angel, then it probably would have been poor form not to offer a few chips to extend an olive branch.
Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself.
