Why I Write

At a recent meeting of my local writing group, we were asked to write about why we write. Like everyone else, I wrote about how writing is a part of me, how it’s something I don’t really have a choice about.

What I’ve been thinking about since is why I write as a career, and why I aspire to one day see my novel published. There are so many other things I am capable of doing for a living that involve less rejection and fewer blows to my ego.

When I was a kid, I dreamed of changing the world with my words.

In reality, much of what I write is practical stuff that I hope is helpful to some people, but isn’t exactly the answer to world hunger or saving the rain forest. But sometimes I’m fortunate enough to write about something that really matters, something that truly helps someone.  One article I’m especially proud of, The Reality of Motherhood...What Nobody Tells You appeared in the July/August 2006 issue New Beginnings. Thanks to Google Alerts, I’ve found people who have posted new links to this article because they think it’s important.

If my article or story reaches one person who needs to hear my message, then I’ve made a difference. And that’s why I write.

Links Tent, Twitter Style

Not so long ago, I finally found my way onto Twitter, and discovered many of the people who write the blogs I follow, along with a whole bunch of other great information. I’ve been tweeting and retweeting some of the best info I’ve come across. Here’s the best of the best:

Great Resource:
The Bookshelf Muse blog: writing tools and musings about reading, writing and other randomness. There are two great thesauruses (thesaurusi?) in the right-hand column: an emotion thesaurus that lists over 60 emotions and and corresponding actions, and a setting thesaurus that will help you anchor your scenes using all of your senses.

Editing and Story Writing Information:

• If you’re not following Elizabeth S. Craig on Twitter, you should be. She posts great links to great content every day. I found many of these links through her tweets. 
• 6 Common Dialogue Mistakes to Avoid, written by Lynette Labelle at Chatterbox Chitchat.
• The Problem—and Reality—of Adding –LY, from The Muffin, brought to you by WOW—Women on Writing.com 
• Lessons From the Slushpile: Good vs Great from the Inkhaven blog.
• Janice Hardy, author of the MG fantasy, The Shifter, has a great post on her The Other Side of the Story blog about Edits vs. Revisions: One on One Death Match.
• The Blood-Red Pencil blog has lots of “sharp and pointed observations about writing,” including this post about Combining Characters.
• Ingrid Sundberg, self-professed writing conference junkie, shares what she learns on her blog Ingrid’s Notes. Here’s a great example 10 Tests to Prove Your Manuscript is Ready for Submission.
• This post, Are Filter Words Weakening Your Fiction? is a great reason to add the Write It Sideways blog to your blog roll.

The Three Rs: Rewriting, Revision and Rejection

Rejection is a (big) part of any writer’s life. We’ve all read about how often great and successful writers were rejected before their novels were accepted—and knowing this can take the sting out of the rejections we receive. We can also take steps to try to limit the number of rejections we receive, by revising and rewriting our manuscripts until they are polished before submitting them. Fortunately, there are lots of agents, writers and editors out there who want to help us do just that, and here is some of the best advice I found in the blogosphere.

Weronika Janczuk, a new agent D4EO literary posts about what she thinks about when she critiques a manuscript in her post My Editorial Letters. It’s like a cheat sheet for writers—a list of all the things you need to consider when you are revising your novel.

Another agent, shares how she evaluates full manuscripts on Kidlit.com. Don’t be thrown by the kid lit angle—this is an excellent post and helpful regardless of the genre in which you write.

Ten Mistakes Writers Don’t See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do) from Holt Uncensored: Number one on this list is the use of repetition, such as repeating a crutch word. I’ve written about my crutch word, “just” a few times, and given you a couple ideas for finding yours (the find and edit feature of Word and using word clouds). The repetition referred to in this post goes a lot deeper than crutch words though...and that’s just the first item on the list.

Some practical suggestions on revisions:

• Scenes: Five Simple Questions for Revision from FictionNotes: These questions help you dig deeper into each scene to add depth, emotion and conflict to your novel. 
• The Writing is in the Rewriting. Deep down, we all know that, but when our critique partner suggests cutting a scene we really love, we don’t always want to listen. Stacey Ballis, in a guest post on Writer Unboxed, shares how she gets through the sometimes difficult process.
• Kathy Temean at Writing and Illustrating shares some practical suggestions for making the revision process easier and for making your sentences come to life in her post Novel Revisions.

Want to know why you’re being rejected?

• Agent Kristin , over at Pub Rants, passes along the disheartening news that she doesn’t read beyond the first two pages of 90% of the submissions she receives. She writes about four Killer Openings to avoid—killers because they kill your chances of having an agent read beyond them.
• Sarah, an associate literary agent with Curtis Brown, Ltd. shares the types of writers who “makes her reject you” in Lessons from Peggy Olson over at Glass Cases.
• And, saving perhaps the best for last, The Blood-Red Pencil blog offers the Top 25 Reasons Your Submissions are Rejected—after as little as one paragraph. The tips are from the Surrey, BC Writers Conference where agents and editors read aloud the first few pages of submissions to see how far they would read before they rejected the work.

Revise, Rewrite and (hopefully) avoid rejection.