We read all forms of advice on how to be a writer, how to become an author, and all the ins and outs of getting published. But sometimes you come across someone able to boil the process down such than anyone can understand the message. James Scott Bell is one such person. Once you hear his advice ask yourself if you can follow his advice.
Well, can you? Will you?
Cheers — Larry
I guess you’d call this a ‘guest post’ as the text is written by my sixteen year old daughter, not me. In her English class she was tasked with writing what she called “a rant.” I think it more to be an advocacy paper but either way, she was supposed to come up with a topic she felt important enough and that she was passionate about for a rant.
She is discussing the most fundamental problem of our modern society as it affects our dialog, our politics, our economics, and our beliefs. Before turning you over to her, I should add one – English is my daughter’s second language. Oh how I wish I could write like this in French. Without further fanfare, I give you Jodie Côté-Marshall.
Less than a few decades ago, what qualified someone as “smart” or “intellectual” wasn’t solely based on how he or she performed in school or in other academic situations. Watching the news, reading the paper, being well informed: those were common things that people did in order to be aware of what was going on around them. Nowadays, that concept isn’t as popular as it once was. The younger generations have chosen to minimize the amount of information they get in spite of the fact that they have access to all the information they need. In other words, people have chosen to shut out all knowledge at a time when being knowledgeable is crucial to our society.
I think one of the reasons that can explain this phenomenon is the fact that interests have completely shifted from big world news to plain-old gossip. As long as your favorite singer or actor has his or her name spread out across a glossy magazine cover, major political and economic issues will be out of the picture. In my opinion, something is terribly wrong. As a citizen of planet Earth, it is your duty to be aware of the major conflicts and discoveries going on in your world.
Another explanation for ignorance is that most people are very self-conscious about their image. According to the modern teenager, knowing things is not very “cool.” In fact, a lot of kids get bullied in school because they’ve dared to show others that they know things. Those who have kept their mouth shut have been spared from the bullying. When a person denies being smart, their ignorance is not bliss, but insulting to those who are actually proud of their intellectual capacities. It is completely illogical that those who know more should be frowned upon and considered abnormal.
This rant isn’t about bullying, nor is it about trying to equalize all stereotypes. It is about convincing people that knowledge and understanding the world is one of the most valuable things a person may possess. It is not a crime to know things and it is not a crime to want to know things. It is up to you now to choose whether or not you want to forget everything that I’ve just told you. Whatever choice you make I ask you to remember this one last thing: while you may not need the world to continue being you, the world will always need you to continue being the world.
My favorite TV show is Castle. I mean, what’s not to like? A bestselling mystery writer following around a good-looking female homicide cop? It doesn’t get any better, particularly if you’re a mystery novel geek like I am.
The interesting ‘twist’ from this show is that there are actual mystery novels being written under the name of the lead character, Rick Castle. Recently a new Rick Castle website has been launched to promote the book series, including the upcoming release of the third book in the series, Heat Rises.
While the whole notion of fictional characters writing real books is appealing to me, what really caught my eye was a small section where Rick Castle answers questions and he’s asked:
What do you do when you have writer’s block?
Castle’s answer: “I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in writer’s embarrassment. That’s when you’re so embarrassed by the horrendous drivel you’re writing that you can’t bear to see it on the page. After all, you can always write something. I’ve discovered that giving yourself permission to write poorly is the gateway to writing well.”
Personally I’ve never believed in writer’s block, muses, and the rest of the mythology associated with writing. And I think Rick Castle (whoever the actual author is) is right on the money. If you realize that your delete key is a powerful tool, you can bypass all the writer’s block nonsense and get on with the writing. Do you allow yourself writer’s embarrassment?
Cheers — Larry
I thought my first post should be one that states the website goals. Long ago, I created my first website, shortly after Mosaic came into being. There was no Netscape, Explorer or Firefox. Google didn’t exist. Blogs, Twitter, nor Facebook had been invented.
At the time I was a scientist. I wrote constantly, in science fashion, but I needed more, so I wrote on the new creation called the world wide web. Nobody really read that website as the notion of surfing the web was unknown to most at the time. That never bothered me much. I wrote because I felt the need.
Since then I left science. I’ve spent time as editor-in-chief of a couple magazines. I’ve written monthly columns for several magazines and I’ve written feature articles for others. I even wrote marketing materials for a couple businesses. The only common thread throughout was words, strung together to form thoughts.
I love words, and I love the various ways of putting them in an order that makes sense. While I’m a long-time computer geek, I’m also a fountain pen afficionado and I spend far too much time pondering the wide array of journals and notebooks available today. So while I have an ongoing love affair with my laptop, I often put pen to paper. A couple of years ago I recycled a small mountain’s worth of notebooks that I’d used but here’s a photo of the notebooks I’ve accumulated since in the past two years. It’s a sickness but a very pleasant one.
This website will reflect these preferences. I will talk about my trials and tribulations as an author, views on the industry, and my thoughts on the writing process itself. But I’ll also talk about my passion for pens and paper. Some say it’s old-fashioned to write with pen and paper. I find doing so is inexorably linked to my success as an author, regardless of what I’m writing.
I do hope you’ll follow along and provide your own insights by leaving comments. Do you use notebooks in support of your writing? How do they help you?
Cheers — Larry