Get Smart!

Get smart about your writing! Take yourself seriously!

When I was a beginning writer I should have had business cards made up to promote myself as a writer! Instead, I snuggled under my down comforter and wrote my heart out. I didn't see myself as a writer then, just a writing fanatic. I wrote whenever I got the muse and this satisfied me. My husband knew that I was a writer, but I didn't share my dream with others.

This was a mistake!

Today I tell my writing clients to create a business card with "writer" written on the top, talk about their writing to anyone who will listen, take writing classes where they can meet other writers and get their work seen, start a blog; in other words, get the word out!

The best way for others to see that you're a writer is for you to believe it first. If you have to write it up on paper for you to say every day, do it! If you have to look in the mirror and say, "I am a writer," fifty times, do it! No more excuses for you today. Today is the first day of your "get smart" writing career.

Talent & Publishing

Am I talented enough to publish? The question may be one we ask ourselves often because we are either in the beginning stages of writing or we have been writing for a few years without a single acceptance of our work.

I wrote steadily for 8 years before my first acceptance and I thought everything would be smooth sailing after that.

It wasn’t.

I still struggled to sell my work, to get the right piece to the right place, to take criticism. Though that 8 year mark was my send off point, I still continued to hone my craft, get cuddly with the genres (I enjoyed children’s writing, journalism, story writing, and novel writing) and continued to learn from mentors who knew more than I did. I took writing classes, received feedback on my work, and spent time reading books and writing every day!

Many years later I am still learning! Though I am a mentor for writers who are just beginning I am still learning what makes a story work, what creates writer’s block, what keeps writers writing what they are most passionate about, and why a certain piece of work never sells.

You are talented enough to publish if you haven’t given up. Say it’s been 10 years and you haven’t published a single solitary piece! Keep writing! Keep learning! You’ll never be talented enough to publish if you quit.

Time waits for no Woman (or man)

Prior to this day I have been less than a terrific blogger. Let’s just say that “life” as I know it got in the way, and blogging, shall we say, was at the bottom of my list.

I was busy mentoring, cleaning, errand running, writing my newest book, and many of the other things that transpire in a given day for a writer. But I was forgetting you.

I read blogs myself, and I love that I can glean ideas from other writers who are struggling to make successful the sorts of things I am. Gleaning ideas is really the only way any of us writers have anything to write about in the first place even if we don’t always get our ideas from a blog.

Your husband might be sick for an entire week, like mine was from a diabetic seizure, and it’s all you can do to take care of him. You may find yourself struggling to provide the money necessary for that next mortgage payment or finding time for your grandchildren. You may wonder when “your time” will come, when you will have time to write and to get on with your life.

What I love about my life is that it is mixed in with other’s lives. I am not an island. I don’t stand alone. My best writing comes from my experiences, as well as who I am, and the way I choose to live. And spending time doing the most important things in life, whether it’s writing the next blog or experiencing the next outing with my grandchildren, is what life is truly all about.