This is a question that comes up a lot in writing circles so I thought I’d answer it.
A lot of people say that the very thought of Covid stopped their writing in their tracks due to anxiety or whatever. They were afraid they might get sick, or afraid that their friends and family might die and that screwed with their jive. That never happened to me. My problem was something entirely different and entirely my own fault.
Part two of my advice should be obvious, but you can’t really be a writer unless you write. Yet this seems to be a major problem for a lot of amateur writers and they can’t seem to just sit down and do what they claim they want to do.
That strikes me as odd, sorry. If this is what you want to do, then why do you refuse to do it? Let’s explore that.
This is something that, surprising, is met with a lot of apprehension by a lot of prospective authors. Time and again, I have seen people argue that they don’t like to read, they shouldn’t have to read and they absolutely reject reading for bizarre rationalizations that make no sense whatsoever under observation. The simple fact is, if you are not a voracious reader, you will never be a good writer. You learn to write primarily by reading. If you’re not willing to do that, give up now.
A lot of beginning writers ask where they should start in the writing game. How do you go from wanting to write to actually writing? There is tons of advice out there, but really, the process is simple, it’s the execution that’s hard. Therefore, I wanted to go into the boilerplate advice I offer in hopes that it helps those willing to put in the hard work.
Back in 2017, I declared that Wonder Woman was the best movie that had come out of the DC Cinematic Universe, which was really damning with faint praise. It was good, but not great. I didn’t expect much better with the new movie and as the trailers started to come out, I started to get a really, really bad feeling about the end product. It just looked like a disjointed mess, especially the scenes with Wonder Woman “riding the lightning”.
It’s really a shame that I was right about it all along.
Have you noticed this? This seems to be commonplace across nearly all pursuits these days, but the one I want to talk about today especially is role playing. I’ve noticed this nearly every day on places like Reddit and I really don’t get it. For a hobby that relies on being creative, why can’t anyone actually be creative?
Recently, a couple of reboots have appeared on the television landscape, some good, some bad. Now keep in mind, I am not a fan of reboots, reimaginings or any of that in general. I think Hollywood needs to be original, not just produce half-assed copies trying to relive past glories, but that’s not the world we live in. So let’s take a look at the good and the bad of late.
One of the first things that most professional writers, or even just experienced writers will tell amateurs is to hold yourself accountable. You don’t know how well you’re doing unless you have some means of measuring it objectively. That’s why most recommend a word count tracker for whatever project you’re working on and I’m going to tell you the same thing. If you want to improve, if you want to produce work, you need to know how you’re doing. Track your words.
As you might have noticed, absolutely everything is gone. The same is true of most of my other blogs. I’ve done a complete reset and absolutely everything that was here before, it is no more.
Why? A couple of reasons. Let me explain.
