Input Jumping in with Writing Links
Spring is finally poking its head out here in Washington, DC. Still a bit on the cold side, but the days are brighter. According to my sinuses, the oaks and maples have started to bloom. I’m hoping the construction crews clear the fencing so that we can have nice green lawns to the curb again (especially since the fencing is just sitting and they’re not doing anything in the immediate area).
How to write a Epistolary Novel. I had to paste in Epistolary because it’s not a word I can picture to spell out. I have a short story call that requires this as an element, and I’ve never done anything like it before. It’s having letters or journal entries–a written form–in a story. The whole story could be made up of it, like The Color Purple. A challenge with that kind of story is that it’s hard to get depth in, and depth is needed. Me being me, I was thinking of what everyone is likely to use: text messages, email, and letters. So I was busy coming up with alternatives, including writing on Post-Its, spells in spell books, notes in a day planner, flyers, or signs on telephone posts. I like the article saying to do more than one type in a book.
On Listening to (Writing) Advice: This is from the Better-Faster Academy. We’re bombarded with writing advice. Partially, it’s because someone is marketing to us, but it’s also because we want someone to tell us how to do it. That’s the certainty discussed in the post. When I was on message boards, other writers informed me that I wasn’t doing writing correctly because I didn’t outline. We face many of these pressures to go outside of what works for us because everyone else tells us it shouldn’t work. I heard recently about a high intellection writer who takes a year to think about the novel–just think–then writes the entire book in like a week. Try explaining that to other writers and they’ll think something is wrong with you. So much pressure to not work the way we should. Which goes to the next one.
The music industry’s over-reliance on TikTok shows how lazy it has become. You could put book and author in here and have about the same result. But Passive Guy’s second to last paragraph says it all.
Rethinking Self-Help: Cal Newport answers a question about writing a novel with a day job. It features some things no one else talks about. He brings up best selling writers and how they wrote while having a day job–and you’d recognize the names. So it pays to ask what’s going on.
