Working Through The Feelings by Heather Novak
Let’s get real, friends. Writing is hard. Like, “everything is on fire and the world is caving in around you and you’re pretty sure the water you’re drowning in is polluted, but you still have to make word count” hard. Add in the turmoil of being tossed around in the ocean and against the jagged cliff that is grief, it’s nearly insurmountable.
But book deadlines don’t care that you’re sitting in the corner of your office in the fetal position chewing on your hair, they care that they’re done. So how do you keep writing? You just do.
Ugh, that sounds like such a cop-out. It’s never that easy. But sometimes you just need to listen to The Queen:
“My top three pieces of writing advice? Stop whining and write. Stop f*cking around and write. Stop making excuses and write.” – Nora Roberts
When The Queen speaks, you listen.
I needed to edit an #ownvoices story a mere three weeks after my mom passed (this story, of course, had a dead mother in it, because, why not?) It was really the worse time editing I have ever had in my life. It made me physically ill. But it also helped me process my grief and helped me pack that emotion into the words.
Learn to use your words as a tool to transfer the grief and guilt and loss onto the paper and fill yourself with peace. And know 80% of what you write is going to be sh*t. I stuck with some first drafts since they’re always crap anyway. Pro-tip, you can edit a terrible draft when you’re having a good day, but not a blank page.
Cut yourself some slack, take care of yourself, breathe. Write ramblings, write blog posts, hand write journal entries. Watch The Great British Bake Off.
Edit when you have good days, write sh*t when you have bad ones. Take a break and read a book once a week. But keep your butt in that chair.
Writing can be a lifeline if you let it.
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On this day in 1749, Charlotte Turner Smith was born. She was an English poet and novelist, instrumental in a revival of the sonnet and establishing the conventions of Gothic fiction (d. 1906)
Wishing You Laughter & Good Books,[image error]
Heather Novak
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Hunting Witch Hazel: Now available
I was happy with my West Coast life – 24-hour pizza delivery and bikini-clad bodies as far as the eye could see. Now I’m in the small-ass town of
Hayvenwood
to extract a ransom to save my little brother’s life. And that ransom is locked inside of the sexiest witch I have ever met, Hazel Evanora.
Filed under: romance


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