advice-for-writers

There's just one advice for an aspiring writer write.

The three rules to writing a novel1) Write2) Write more3) Keep writing

Let failure be your workshop. See it for what is is: the world walking you through a tough but necessary semester, free of tuition. (from Workbook)

In the time we spend reeling in confusion, grasping at straws trying to piece our egos together, we forget to acknowledge some things. Society created gender roles and categorizations and lifestyles and names and titles because we fear the unknown, especially when the unknown is us.It__ as though we__e stranded in the middle of an ocean, but we were promised the current would bring us back ashore. We__e given all we need on the life raft. As far as we can see, we__e being led back, slowly. We don__ know when we__l approach the shore, but all evidence points to the fact that we will. But we don__ spend our time looking around, enjoying the view, seeing who came with us, and riding out the waves. We sit and panic about what we__e doing and why we came here.It doesn__ matter where we started because we may never know. It matters where we__e going, because that, we do. We begin and we end. We__e seen one, so there__ only one other option.

My advice to writers is this:Walk, talk, breathe, laugh, cry, fall, rise, fail, succeed, run, jump, love, hate, hide, seek, learn, work, play, feel, LIVE.Then write it down.

[G]ive nothing centrality, because writing is about continually shifting weight from one thing and moment to the other.

To listen to critics, pro or con, and take their words to heart is to subcontract your self-esteem to strangers. (from Workbook)

As a writer, I like the list of "things to strive for" that Richard Yates kept above his typewriter:genuine claritygenuine feelingthe right wordthe exact English sentencethe eloquent detailthe rigorous dramatization of story

Some writers write to forget. Some forget to write.

And as your writing evolves, what you need and get from it evolves.

Developing your voice takes... time and practice.

You sought to preserve your creative instincts and what would nourish them. But neurosis itself does not nourish the artist, you know; he creates in spite of it, out of anything, any material given to him. The torments and hells of [crazy men], are not for you.

If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

Writers will often find themselves steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.

This is the same establishment that all those who want, or rather aspire to, to be literary figures of the century, artists, painters and sculptors want acceptance from and approval. They want to be looked up to. Young and upcoming poets must approach their craft with an almost angelic perspective. So many writers are missing a condensed fusion in their writing, they condescend to their audience, the truth is not spoken in their work, they gabble, their words seem to make a hot fuss on the page. What do they gain? They gain this, simply nothing. Poets must assemble and present their work accordingly to how they see fit and should be careful of advice from other writers and editors. Sometimes there can be too much going on in the words that are meant to be given with the best of intentions.