Mike Reuther's Blog, page 4

Get this great free book for writers

It’s that time of year again when you start giving serious thought to transforming your

life.

I’m talking New Year’s resolutions.

Perhaps your resolution is to finally write that book you’ve always dreamed of writing.

If so, I can help.

Click the link below to get my free ebook on writing a book.

It may be just what you need to get you started on your writing journey.

https://mailchi.mp/5556eb74c40e/freebie-giveaway

Free book on writing

Hey. Everybody likes freebies.

Download my book on writing and learn the secrets of launching your first book.

Get into the habit of writing

I guess I first I had my sights set on being a writer sometime around the fifth or sixth beer all those years ago, my mind running circles in an inebriated fog of possibilities.

Mad about literature, a devourer of books, a life stretched before me, my name one day emblazoned on the spines of books facing outward from some musty book shop of the future.

Ah yes. The intellectual life.

When you’re eighteen or nineteen, and high on alcohol or drugs, anything seems possible.

You have your own dreams of being an author, and they may be similar.

The question is: What are you doing about it?

Are you only dreaming the life of an author? 

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ve gotten a taste of my inspiration must be accompanied by perspiration sermon.

An idea, a creative burst, will simply remain that if not followed by the writing itself.

So … what are you doing to scratch that itch, that longing to be a writer?

Are you sitting your ass in that chair and putting down words?

If so, do you have a schedule, a regular time for writing?

Or does the thought of setting aside blocks of time to write everyday sound too much like a nine-to-five job, a gig you were hoping to avoid by becoming a writer in the first place?

Writing a book, make no mistake about it, requires some degree of discipline.

It’s that daily writing routine that gets you into the rhythm, the momentum needed to finish that marathon for writing the book.

Make your writing dreams come true.

Get up tomorrow and knock off a few pages. Hell, a few paragraphs anyway. 

Then repeat it the next day and the day after that.

A groundbreaking study done in the 1950s by Dr. Maxwell Maltz concluded that it can take a minimum of just 21 days to form a new habit. 

Think about that.

Why not try on a new habit – the writing habit.

What have you got to lose?

Just write

How do you begin writing every day?

Does it take a cup of coffee to jumpstart your writing?

Are there certain rituals you go through before you write?

What sort of surroundings comprise your writing space?

Some authors simply would not think of writing without background music, perhaps burning incense or candles to capture just the right ambience to fuel the creative juices.

Maybe you don’t need anything to help you along on your writing journeys. You can write anywhere.

For a time, I found New Age or soft music as just the right background for writing. But no music with lyrics lest I found myself singing the words in my brain and becoming sidetracked from the story.

How about a soundtrack that plays rushing water or falling rain or the whirring of a washing machine or dryer?

If you’re a writer, you need to find your comfort zone and it’s different for everyone.

Maybe you’re just fine banging out words on a typewriter at the kitchen table. For someone else, the writing table is a door across some cinder blocks in a garage.    

The great novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote in longhand standing up. Jack Kerouac banged out his classic novel, On the Road, on scroll paper.

Books have been written from jail cells and mental institutions. The Diary of Anne Frank was created by a Jewish teenage girl hiding from the Germans during World War II.

What have you got to say? What book do you want to write?

If the will to write is there, you won’t need the music, the burning candles, the computer with all the best book-writing software.

You’ll just write the darn book.

Mike Reuther is a novelist and journalist and the author of books on writing. Check out his books at https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Reuther/e/B009M5GVUW%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share  

The tree

Yesterday at dusk, as I left one of my favorite fishing spots, I spotted a tree.

It might have been a maple, perhaps an oak.

What caught my attention was the color, the autumnal splendor of this tree in the waning sunlight of an early November day.

There it was before a cabin amidst the mountains of northcentral Pennsylvania, like a lemon drop upon a stem, its leaves a burst of brilliant yellow.

I tried to take a picture of this tree, just as I described it, but being the amateur photographer that I am, and with nothing other than a cellphone camera to capture this natural wonder, the photo came out dark.

But I expect the tree will remain in my memory.  

Perhaps I’ll use that tree in some future writing project.

Those images we encounter in every day life can serve as springboards to the imagination.

Perhaps that tree was planted many years ago by a man in memory of a beloved son who lost his life in the roiling waters of that nearby trout stream. Maybe the tree is a matter of dispute between two landowners on bordering properties and is in danger of being cut down.

Imagine there was a treehouse in that tree that holds some forbidden secrets of children, now grown, who used it as a hideaway where they engaged in strange rituals.

Pick out an object, any object, and your mind can take flight, devising stories, wonderful tales that should be told.

Sit in a park or an airport and watch people go by.

What about that man in the suit and tie sitting all alone, staring out the window of a commuter train looking forlorn? Did he just lose his job as part of some mass wave of furloughs? What’s his story? What will happen to him?

As writers, we are fortunate to have this vast world surrounding us. There are a million stories to tell, and it’s quite easy to launch a novel, a short story, if we just get out of our own way and let our minds wander.

Grab an image and write

Yesterday at dusk, as I left one of my favorite fishing spots, I spotted a tree.

It might have been a maple, perhaps an oak.

What caught my attention was the color, the autumnal splendor of this tree in the waning sunlight of an early November day.

The tree, before a cabin amidst the mountains of northcentral Pennsylvania, appeared as a lemon drop, its leaves a burst of brilliant yellow.

I tried to take a picture of this tree, just as I described it, but being the amateur photographer that I am, and with nothing other than a cellphone camera to capture this natural wonder, the photo came out dark.

But I expect the tree will remain in my memory.  

Perhaps I’ll use that tree in some future writing project.

Those images we encounter in every day life can serve as springboards to the imagination.

Perhaps that tree was planted many years ago by a man in memory of a beloved son who lost his life in the roiling waters of that nearby trout stream. Maybe the tree is a matter of dispute between two landowners on bordering properties and is in danger of being cut down.

Imagine there was a treehouse in that tree that holds some forbidden secrets of children, now grown, who used it as a hideaway where they engaged in strange rituals.

Pick out an object, any object, and your mind can take flight, devising stories, wonderful tales that should be told.

Sit in a park or an airport and watch people go by.

What about that man in the suit and tie sitting all alone, staring out the window of a commuter train looking forlorn? Did he just lose his job as part of some mass wave of furloughs? What’s his story? What will happen to him?

As writers, we are fortunate to have this vast world surrounding us. There are a million stories to tell, and it’s quite easy to launch a novel, a short story, if we just get out of our own way and let our minds wander.

The need to write

Does writing a book absolutely obsess you?

Is the need to write a novel or some nonfiction book so overwhelming that you feel you might go crazy if you don’t do it?

Perhaps you are already a writer but often find yourself stuck or blocked and you miss many days of writing. Do those unwriting days leave you blue or angry?

Such feelings are not uncommon at all and are a sure sign that you really are a writer and that you should press on to become that author you always wanted to be.

You see, everyone is looking to fulfill themselves in some way.

Some burn to be an astronaut, a doctor, a champion figure skater, or successful business owner.

For the writer, it may be to pen the great American novel or the definitive book on some earth-shaking issue.

Your goals, of course, might be modest ones, but if the burning desire to write is there, chances are it’s not going away.

Perhaps you find yourself at age fifty awakened by a desire to write. You might have carried a flaming passion for writing at nineteen which you never fulfilled only to be stirred once again by these desires many years later.

Of course, it’s never too late or too early to ignite those writing aspirations.

Don’t pass of those needs to write as silly daydreams and the crazy yearnings of a mid-life crisis.

Don’t think you’re too young to write.

Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were mere lads in their twenties when they published their first books.

Okay. Maybe you’re not Hemingway or Faulkner. Maybe you’re not a genius.

But guess what? You don’t have to be a genius.

The key to writing is to write, and to be you, putting down words in your natural voice – not matter your age, gender, race, or background.

Everyone has a story to tell.

Don’t you think?

Wake up writers

It’s the morning after the big presidential election.

Passions are running high.

As I write this, an historic election has not been settled.

There are minions on both sides of the political spectrum wondering: Why didn’t everyone vote for my candidate? Didn’t the message resonate?

Or even: How can so many people be so stupid, so blind?

I raise this issue because the election to decide who leads the greatest nation in the free world has been an emotional one, a kind of wakeup call for people across the nation for many months now.

Let’s face it. Politics, for better or worse, emanate strong feelings.

If you are a writer looking for something to write about, there may be no better topic. I’m not suggesting you launch a book about your hatred or love for a certain politician or ideology. On the other hand, it’s not a bad topic for a book.

What I am saying is you can find a subject that stirs you, that brings out feelings deep within your soul, an issue that angers, saddens, or causes scalding hot tears to drip down your face. A topic of which you feel so strongly that you are busting like a volcano to let it out and convince others of your side.

There exists no shortage of things to write about in this big wide world of ours. Life itself is complex, often with no easy answers.

A writer can explore these questions through essays or columns or even a short story or novel.

You say you don’t know what to write about?

The answer really is not as difficult as you think.  

National Novel Writing Month

It’s Nov. 1. You know, NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month.

NaNoWriMo is the annual creative writing project in which participants attempt to write a 50,000-word manuscript between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30.

What better way to jump-start one’s writing than to take part in this endeavor?

Many beginning authors or those feeling stuck in their writing can climb aboard NaNoWriMo to pen a book.

What about you?

Are you suffering from writer’s block? Is there a book inside you dying to get out?

Use this month to start writing that novel or other book you’ve always wanted to write.

For authors who have perhaps put a novel or nonfiction project on pause, why not start writing in November once again.

And even if you can’t reach that monthly goal set by NaNoWriMo of 50,000 words … who cares? The point is start writing and better yet, keep writing.

So sit down in front of that blank piece of paper or your computer and let the words fly.

A wrong way to write?

becomeanauthor

Is there a right or wrong way to write a book?

That’s like asking if there is a right or wrong way to take a vacation.

You can write fast, slow or at a pace somewhere in between.

You can plan and outline a book to death or just start writing it with no plan at all.

There are many ways to write a book. There exists no one-size-fits-all program for authors.

Anyone familiar with my books and blogs on writing knows I am the champion of fast writing, of getting words down quickly.

I strongly believe this stream of consciousness approach puts a writer in his or her natural voice.

It works for me. It works for many writers.

But I realize no matter how much I push this method it will not convince everyone that it’s the best way to write a book.

And that’s okay.

Being a…

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