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January 1 - August 1, 2024
But the biggest separation between writers who publish and those who don’t is that writers who publish keep working after they feel entitled to be done.
Being good doesn’t lift you out of failure. In fact, the better you get, the more awful failure feels, because you can’t let it go with “Oh, I wasn’t ready,” or “Yeah, that magazine is hard to get into.” You start to feel like you’ve paid your dues, you’ve put your time in, and when is success going to show up, please, because it’s getting late?
118 Memoir is its own genre, but usually shelved based on the written experience, such as Travel or Addiction and Recovery.
You are a real writer when you write. You are still a real writer when you’re not writing, when you’re sitting and listening for words to come.
“I’m a writer” creates dialogue. Even if you’re still learning, even if you’re at the very beginning of being good, even if you never sell or publish a word.
WRITING BETTER Writers edit. More than any other artist (except perhaps painters working in oils), we labor over the fixed form until it’s “perfect.” Or as close as we can get. Tweaking sentences and swapping out words. Junking the whole thing and starting again, treading the same path, but better. Until it wins acceptance, awards, dollars, validation.
Write scraps and crots and pieces of broken structure. Throw them in a pile or a box or even the trash, but write, write, write. Until it’s not precious, or special, or perfect. It’s just what you do. All the time.
You write, you write, always you write, and in the end, you win because you show up.
Writing can feel like a job as well as a joy. And it’s OK to need a tool—even one that feels like a trick.
7) Root out boring verbs. Search for began, started, continued and strengthen the verb instead. 8) Activate passive verbs when possible.
4) Chapter by chapter: does each chapter end with a punchline, a button, a hook, or something that makes the reader want to turn the page?
