by Naomi L. | September 6, 2017 | Blog, Creative Writing, Featured |
Remember that post I shared last week about the hard truths of being a writer? Well, fear not; I promise you that was only half of the big picture. After all, why would anyone choose to write if it only ever brought misery? Being a writer can be just as rewarding as it is frustrating, and if you can power through its challenges, you’ll find an incredibly adventurous and fulfilling path ahead.
So for those of you who choose to follow this path, here are six perks of being a fiction writer that you can look forward to. Happy writing!
Writing Perk #1: You have the power to create anything.
In a way, fiction writers make up their own class of superheroes. Some people have super strength, others are incredibly smart, and still others excel at almost everything they try. But writers? We have the ultimate gift: the power of creation.
While I envy visual artists for their ability to draw, I’d still favor being a writer any day. The ability to paint vivid images with language is a special form of art with its own challenges, and when done right, it can be even more effective. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but imagery through words alone is an exercise for the imagination.
Anyone who’s ever tried writing a novel—especially a fantasy or science fiction novel—is familiar with the concept of “world building”. There’s much more to storytelling than conflict; you must create characters and settings to bring that conflict to life. And in my experience, there’s nothing quite as thrilling as the power to create an entire universe and direct the fates of its inhabitants any way you want. Besides, at what other job can you openly say you kill people for a living? Writing may not be the highest paying job in the world, but it certainly has benefits you can’t get anywhere else!
Writing Perk #2: You regularly exercise your mind and imagination.
There’s nothing like writing a story to get those creative juices flowing. It’s no secret that writing has several psychological benefits such as catharsis and improved learning, and writing fiction has the added benefit of exercising the imagination. Creativity is always a useful skill, so you can never have too much of it!
By regularly creating characters, settings, and plots, you exercise the ability to see situations from various perspectives and open your mind to all sorts of possibilities, as much in fiction as in real life. Practice with conflict resolution in fiction can also be surprisingly helpful when it comes to real-world problem-solving, as you’ll likely be able to foresee problems more easily and find better solutions. And if not, at least you’ll have another story to tell when everything’s said and done. Writing fiction provides plenty of benefits for your mind and spirit. Don’t let them go to waste!
Writing Perk #3: You have the best emotional release in the world.
There’s a saying that goes, “Never wrong a writer. They get their revenge in print.” There’s another saying that goes, “If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.” What do these sayings have in common? They prove that writers have the most powerful emotions in the world.
Being a writer, especially a fiction writer, takes a generous amount of vulnerability to pull off. Good fiction demands a fair share of emotion to resonate with the audience, and that means the writer must be an emotional being. We bleed our feelings onto the page and carefully craft our stories to evoke the empathy of our readers, and such an art form takes inspiration from real-life emotions. Fortunately, life provides emotional inspiration in spades.
As a writer, you should never be afraid to use your emotions in your work. When you’re happy, write motivational pieces with positive takeaways. If you fall in love, draw romantic stories or poetry from personal experience. Use a broken heart as the foundation of tragedies, and when someone infuriates you, adapt them into an expendable character and kill them off in the most satisfyingly painful way. In how many other jobs can you say your emotions are your most powerful tools? Use them to your advantage!
Writing Perk #4: You learn new things all the time.
Think of the last time you wrote a story about something you’ve never done before. Chances are you had to do a fair amount of research to get it right, and you probably learned something unexpected while you did. This is one of the most enjoyable parts of writing fiction: you learn something new every day!
Whether you write fantasy/sci-fi novels, historical fiction, or anything in between, at some point during writing, you’ll run into a detail that you’ll have to look up. While research can be tedious sometimes, you can also see it as an opportunity to learn something you never would have otherwise. From ancient mythology to medieval weaponry to space technology, the world is full of fascinating information just waiting to be turned into stories. With all the research it takes to be a fiction writer, we probably learn more doing what we do than all the other professionals out there combined!
Writing Perk #5: You get rewarded for being yourself.
Let’s be honest: the absolute best writing always comes from the heart, and the only way to write from the heart is to be yourself. Hiding behind a mask of civility may get you ahead in the corporate world, but when it comes to writing fiction, imperfection is your greatest asset. No matter what genre you write in, it’s your original voice that will make it unique. You don’t have to be completely crazy (though eccentricity is definitely a plus); you just have to be relatable. And if you’re flawed—or in other words, human—you’ve already got that covered.
One of the most famous writing tips out there is “write what you know”, so when drawing inspiration from people for characters, the best person to start with is yourself. You know your own strengths and weaknesses, so you already have what it takes to create a well-rounded character. From there, work your way up to using other real people as inspiration for characters, and before you know it, you’ll be writing dozens of stories that readers will easily relate to.
Basically, if you’re only writing perfect characters who never deal with conflict in any way, you’re doing fiction wrong. Everyone has their flaws and problems, and if you can be open about yours, you can create meaningful and inspiring works of art, just by being yourself. How is that not the greatest job in the world?
Writing Perk #6: You can make a difference in the world.
There are few forms of writing that make an impact quite the way storytelling does. While nonfiction generally focuses on logic and rational thought, stories have the power to mix truth with emotion in a unique style that appeals to a reader’s entire character, thus making for much more influential writing.
By becoming a writer, you’ve already taken a major step toward making a difference in the world. You don’t even have to change the entire world; the chance to influence even one person’s life is already worth the effort. You may not realize it yet, but you have the power to make a real difference. So share your stories and show people they’re not alone. Inspire those around you and use your words to make life better for everyone. The world could always use more stories, so keep on writing!
Can you attest to any of these perks of being a fiction writer? What other benefits of writing fiction would you add to this list?
by Naomi L. | September 4, 2017 | Blog, Word of the Week |
Word: parsimony
Pronunciation: PAHR-sə-moh-nee
Part of Speech: noun
Definition:
- extreme unwillingness to spend money or use resources
- the scientific principle that things are usually connected or behave in the simplest or most economical way
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
Fun fact: today’s Word of the Week features another word I learned through its secondary meaning in science. While studying phylogenetics in grad school, I learned about different approaches to building and analyzing evolutionary trees, one of which involves inferring the fewest possible changes in a species’ history. It’s easy to see why this scientific criterion is so popular; when it comes to tracing evolution, you can hardly get any simpler than “parsimony”!
“Parsimony” is an extreme unwillingness to use resources or spend money. In science, it refers to the principle that things are connected or behave in the simplest way. The word arose in late Middle English and comes from the Latin noun parsimonia, meaning “frugality”. This noun stems from the verb parcere, which means “to spare”.
When working this word into your fiction, note that its primary definition is synonymous with “cheapness” and “penny-pinching”, while its second definition is often used interchangeably with “Occam’s razor“, a similar principle which states that “in explaining a thing, no more assumptions should be made than are necessary”. If you’re looking for an adjective to describe people guilty of “parsimony”, you can also use “parsimonious” alongside such words as “miserly” and “selfish”. If your characters are extremely stingy (or happen to be evolutionary biologists), “parsimony” may be an excellent word to add to your stories!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
by Naomi L. | August 30, 2017 | Blog, Creative Writing, Featured |
So you want to be a writer. Fantastic! But have you thought it through? Do you know what it really takes to be a writer? You might think you do, but if you’re only looking through rose-colored glasses at the glamour of being a famous author, you may be shocked to find some ugly bumps in the road. Writing is full of harsh reality checks, and if you’re not prepared for what lies ahead, those cold hard truths can tear you to shreds faster than you can say “unfinished manuscript”.
So before you head out on your grand writing journey, here are six hard truths about being a writer you should really be aware of. Proceed at your own discretion!
Hard Truth #1: Writing is not as easy as you think it is.
If you’re thinking about pursuing writing because it’s an easy way to make a living right off the bat, then stop right there. Turn around and go back, because this is not the calling for you. Or if you insist, proceed and find out the hard way: writing is not as easy as you think. In fact, some would go as far as to say writing is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Tons of hard work for relatively little reward? Nothing easy about that.
Let me be clear about something: writing itself is easy. It’s hardly a skill; I mean, we learned how to do it in preschool. What’s hard is writing well. If being good at writing were easy, everyone would be making a living from it. Or maybe no one would because everyone could do it for themselves. Either way, a world where everyone’s a writer would be vastly different than the world of “aspiring artists” we know today.
Everyone starts somewhere, and more often than not, “somewhere” is not very good. What separates the wannabes and amateurs from the serious writers is a commitment to mastering the craft. The amateurs will give up at the first sign of adversity: a lack of inspiration, difficulty editing, a polite yet stern rejection letter. The serious writers, on the other hand, will tackle those challenges and use them as motivation to improve. You can’t appreciate inspiration until you’ve faced hours of writer’s block, you can’t know how to self-edit until you’ve practiced enough times to learn what works, and you can’t find publishing success unless you keep pitching your work to people who might give you a chance.
If you go into the world of writing thinking it’ll be easy, then you’d better brace yourself for a lot of slaps in the face. The writing journey is a marathon, not a sprint. Approach it with respect, and you’ll find that while it may not get much easier over time, it will be much more rewarding in the end.
Hard Truth #2: Writing is not for everyone.
After dispelling the first myth about writing being easy, you may still want to pursue it for the sheer love of the craft. There’s nothing wrong with that; after all, a journey to becoming a writer should start with passion. But there’s more to being a writer than just writing.
You might think that you don’t need to worry about editing or publishing or marketing because those jobs can all be handed off to someone else. Editing is what editors are paid for. Publishing and marketing can be handled by big publishing houses. All you have to do is write, and others will take care of the rest.
Yet in today’s world, where everyone is screaming over each other for attention, writers must be so much more. Writers must also be editors and marketers and, in the case of “indies”, even publishers. You will have to edit your own manuscript before you send it to a professional editor, and again after you get it back (expect to repeat this process several times). You will either have to convince an agent or a publisher to sell your book or make the decision to publish it yourself. You will have to do much of the marketing for your own book, regardless of which publishing route you take. And you will have to accept feedback when people actually read it, both good and bad.
So if you’re not prepared to put in all the hard work, to endure long periods of writer’s block and loneliness, edit and re-edit, power through rejections or self-publishing, and deal with criticism from readers, you might as well stop right here, because you clearly don’t have what it takes to be a writer. Well, not a published one, anyway.
This doesn’t mean you should give up writing forever; just maybe keep practicing in private until you can fully commit to becoming an author. When you’re ready to share your stories with the world, the world will be ready to read them. Until then, writing (publicly) is probably not for you.
Hard Truth #3: Inspiration doesn’t strike whenever you want it to.
We all like to imagine artists as eccentric people in constant connection with the muses. Beauty is in everything, and even the most mundane details can be turned into a work of art in the mind of a creative person. Inspiration is anywhere and everywhere; you just have to know where to find it.
If this is your vision of writing, then prepare yourself for a world of disappointment. Much like money, inspiration doesn’t just grow on trees or fall out of the sky when you least expect it; you have to work hard to get it. The muses can be generous, but they’re also elusive. Sure, there will be plenty of times when inspiration strikes without warning, but most of the time, you will have to look for it yourself.
One of the hardest lessons you’ll learn about writing is that if you sit around waiting to write only when inspiration strikes you, you’ll never get any writing done. Many people assume that you have to get inspired to write, but believe it or not, it’s almost always the other way around: you have to write to get inspired.
Make time to create, even when you don’t feel like it. Put pen to paper or fingers to keys and start spilling words onto the page. If you don’t know where to start, use writing prompts, try writing exercises, or scribble random ideas in your notebook until something sticks. Just don’t be idle. Admit this to yourself once and for all: waiting for inspiration is nothing but a lame excuse to procrastinate. Stop waiting to be creative and just write already!
Hard Truth #4: Thick skin only comes with experience.
Picture this: You’ve finally published that novel you’ve been working on for years. You’ve done everything you could to make it perfect; now you sit back and wait for the praise to start rolling in. And for a while, it does: first from friends and family, then from total strangers! Everyone is liking your book! You’re a success! But just when you finally start to shed that crippling self-doubt…
Gasp! What’s this? A bad review? Someone didn’t like your story! You’ve failed! All that doubt comes flooding back tenfold. And that’s why you’re now a tearstained mess, curled up on your bedroom floor and drowning yourself in chocolate for the third day in a row. Maybe you were never cut out for this writing stuff after all.
We see this advice in every publishing resource out there: if you want to be a writer, you have to have thick skin. But nobody tells you that thick skin isn’t something you magically get just because you wish for it. For most of us, the only way to learn how to brush off criticism is through brutal firsthand experience.
While it’s true that many people can dive headfirst into a profession without ever caring what people think, thick skin is especially hard for writers to develop because writing by nature requires vulnerability. As artists, we bear our souls on the page and show our emotions through our work, so when that work isn’t well received, we can’t help but take it personally. And why wouldn’t we? Our stories are our babies, and no one likes being told their baby is ugly!
No matter how much time you spend mentally preparing for bad reviews, your first one will probably hit you like a ton of bricks. Why? Because deep down, there’s a part of you that wants to believe it will never happen to you. Our fragile egos will us to believe that even though everyone has different tastes and opinions, somehow our work will be the exception that’s universally praised. And that kind of thinking is just as unrealistic as any fantasy story you’ve ever read.
The truth is no one—and I mean literally no one—is immune to criticism. Every author gets a bad review at some point; it comes with being published. J.K. Rowling still gets one-star reviews for her critically acclaimed Harry Potter series. Stephen King, world-famous author of over two hundred stories, has too many critics to count. Margaret Atwood, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Harper Lee all got scathing reviews for their classic novels when they first came out. And yet general consensus says they’re all great writers.
So don’t stress yourself out anticipating your first bad review. Instead, accept that it will come someday, tell yourself it’s okay to be upset when it does, and give yourself as much time and space as you need to move on from it. And above all, no matter how hard it seems in the moment, do not give up on writing. I promise the longer you stick with it, the easier it will get.
Hard Truth #5: Talent isn’t everything. Relationships are.
Have you ever read a well-known piece of writing—a novel, a short story, a poem—that was truly awful? Chances are you thought you could do way better. Maybe you can. Maybe you do. And maybe someday you’ll wonder why your name doesn’t appear next to those authors on the bestseller lists. Why should you have to struggle to be noticed while these writers get to enjoy fame they don’t deserve?
Because talent isn’t everything. That’s right, even in the world of art. Face it, even if you are extremely talented, so are thousands of other people who nobody knows or cares about. You may not be the only one reading this and thinking that your stories deserve more attention than such train wrecks as Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. So what makes all those terrible authors better than you? They have connections to the right people.
It takes a lot more than just being good at something to be rewarded for it. You have to know how to get your work out there, and that means building solid relationships and networks with people who can help you move forward. You need friendships with other writers who have been through the same struggles and can help you improve your writing. You need connections with editors who can polish your work and help you get it published. You need an audience of fans who will be the first to read your stories and spread the word to more potential readers.
Despite what you may think, writing is not a completely solitary endeavor. It’s more often who you know than what you know that matters. So never underestimate the power of networking, because the right person with the right connections could be the final piece of the puzzle to make your success. If you really want to be a writer, create more than stories; create meaningful, lasting relationships.
Hard Truth #6: No one chooses to write. Writing chooses you.
In Soviet Russia, book writes you! (You know I had to do it.)
After learning all these hard truths about being a writer, you might be feeling a bit discouraged. Maybe you’ve changed your mind about writing and you’re already thinking about all the other skills you can put to good use instead. If that’s the case, then I’m sorry to say you were probably never meant to be a writer in the first place. But if you’ve made it to the end of this blog post and are more determined than ever to be a writer, then congratulations: writing has chosen you!
The funny thing about being a writer is that there isn’t always rhyme or reason to pursuing the craft. We write because we have to. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked back on old stories and blog posts I’ve written and thought, “Wow, this really sucks. Why did I write this?” And then I remember, “Oh right, because I couldn’t not write it.” This is our reality: when an idea calls, we must answer.
It’s easy enough to say you want to write your whole life, but talk is cheap. Only by doing it can you truly call yourself a writer. And if all the hard truths and fears and roadblocks of writing can’t deter you from actually sitting down and churning out those stories, then the writing life may be for you after all. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this and get writing!
Have you learned any of these truths about writing the hard way? What other hard truths would you add to this list?
by Naomi L. | August 28, 2017 | Blog, Word of the Week |
Word: penumbra
Pronunciation: pə-NƏM-brə
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
Continuing from last week’s theme of the total solar eclipse, today’s Word of the Week features a related word also used as an astronomy term. While a small portion of the U.S. was in the path of the totality, most viewers were only able to see a partial eclipse at its peak. Still, the whole event was quite the experience, even for those of us who only got to view it from the “penumbra”!
“Penumbra” refers to the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object, typically by the moon or the Earth during an eclipse. The word arose in the mid 17th century and is a modern Latin noun meaning “partial shadow”. This noun comprises two roots: the adverb paene “almost” and the noun umbra “shadow”.
Similar to “umbra”, “penumbra” can also be used as a different astronomy term for “the less dark outer part of a sunspot, surrounding the dark core”. The word can also function as a figurative term for an area of uncertainty between mutually exclusive states or an area on the edge of something. If you’re writing about an eclipse or want to refer to any sort of shadowy area, “penumbra” is a good word to consider for your stories!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
by Naomi L. | August 23, 2017 | Blog, Creative Writing |
There’s nothing quite like being in love, and for a writer who’s passionate about romance, it can be a gold mine of inspiration. I know that ever since I fell in love (most recently), I’ve found it much easier to write romantic stories and poetry, and even fiction in general. There’s plenty of creative inspiration to be found in love, so it’s only natural for artists to include so much of it in their art!
So for fun, today’s post is dedicated to a special someone who inspires much of my creative side. Here are three ways I’ve found that being in love can inspire your writing. Enjoy!
1) Being in love brings out the beauty in life.
As much as it sounds like a scene out of a cheesy romantic cartoon, being in love really does make the world around you more beautiful. And beauty is at the heart of so many of the most sincere and emotional works of art. Ever since falling in love, I’ve had a brighter outlook on life and a much deeper insight into the positive things in the world, and these have certainly manifested in my stories as romantic plots, satisfying conflict resolution, and happy endings.
If you are or have ever been mutually in love, chances are you too have seen the world become a little brighter for it. You may know it poetically as “rose-colored glasses”, “butterflies in your stomach”, or “head over heels”, and maybe it’s even gone as far as to make you want to dance or shout with joy. Don’t limit that light to your real-world experiences; let it guide your imagination too! Write about the fluttering of the heart in a moment of passion or how much more vivid colors become through the eyes of a person in love. If writers should write what they know, then why not write about the magic in your life? It can often make for the most beautiful works of art!
2) Being in love helps relieve stress and anxiety.
Sometimes I don’t even need to be writing romance to be inspired by love. As many writers well know, stress and anxiety can be real creativity killers depending on the kind of stories or poetry you’re trying to write. Unfortunately, the times we’re living in seem to be producing an overabundance of those bad feelings, which can translate into a severe lack of motivation for many of us. Maybe you can turn that anxiety into an aggressive streak of darker stories and poetry if that’s your style, but for writers like me, who favor romance and happy endings, it generally puts me out of the mood to create at all.
So whenever I’m feeling too stressed or anxious to write, I remind myself of how happy my significant other makes me and how good a place I’ve been in since we fell in love. Maybe it goes against the grain of the “tortured artist” stereotype, but I’m sure I do most of my best (or at least most productive) work when I feel emotionally fulfilled and free of tension. That’s not to say one should only ever use positive experiences in their fiction or poetry; after all, conflict is at the heart of every engaging story and many of the most interesting poems, and you absolutely should accept inspiration from your negative experiences too. But if you can, let real-life love motivate you to at least get those words out of your head. Not only is it one of the best treatments against stress and anxiety, it’s also a great cure for writer’s block!
3) Being in love can motivate you to be a better writer.
The great thing about love is that when you find it with the right person, you inspire each other to become better people. If nothing else, being in love gives me the motivation I need to be the best version of myself I can be. The amazing feeling of being loved by someone else pushes me to keep improving in the areas of my life that matter most, and few of those areas matter more to me than my passion for writing.
So I keep on giving it my all when I write, because if I deserve that special someone who works hard for both of us and does everything he can to support my passion, then he deserves someone who will work just as hard to help support him through her craft and keep coloring his life with all the art she creates. Relationships are all about teamwork, and if you’re really in love, you’ll want to put in the effort to make yours work. And if that includes being a better writer, then by all means let your love push you to keep reaching for those creative stars!
What about you? Have you ever been in love? How has that love inspired your writing?
by Naomi L. | August 21, 2017 | Blog, Word of the Week |
Word: umbra
Pronunciation: ƏM-brə
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: the fully shaded inner region of a shadow cast by an opaque object, especially the area on the earth or moon experiencing the total phase of an eclipse
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
Today’s the big day of the total solar eclipse! If you’re in the United States, you’ll have a chance to see at least a partial eclipse from wherever you are, so be sure to check NASA’s timetable of viewing times for your location (or if you’re anywhere else in the world, be sure to catch NASA’s live stream)! In the meantime, here’s a new vocabulary word to celebrate this rare event! Most of us here in the U.S. will get to see part of the eclipse, but only the lucky few total eclipse viewing areas will be in the path of the “umbra”!
“Umbra” refers to the fully shaded inner region of a shadow cast by an opaque object, typically the area on the moon or the Earth experiencing the total phase of an eclipse. The word arose in the late 16th century and was originally used to denote a ghost or phantom. This noun stems from the Latin noun umbra, meaning “shadow” or “shade”.
Aside from its primary meaning, “umbra” is a literary term for “shadow” or “darkness”, while in astronomy, it can also refer to “the dark central part of a sunspot”. You may remember the Latin root umbra from another word I’ve written about before, which also means “to overshadow”. If you’re writing about an eclipse or simply want to work a more literary word for “shadow” into your stories, “umbra” is a good word to include in your vocabulary!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
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