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Writers have a lot of excuses that keep them from writing.
When I was little, I imagined that creative people just couldn't stop creating. They were driven by their passion to express their art whenever and wherever they could. If they had to work 9 to 5 jobs, they came home and stayed up late into the night working on their latest masterpiece.
These days, I know different.
People who enjoy writing, painting, photography, or other creative endeavors are just like anyone else. When they feel "in the mood," they love breaking out their artistic tools of choice and creating something beautiful.
But, most of the time, life intervenes. They have jobs (because something has to pay the bills), a family, chores, and too little energy to stay up late doing anything much other than watching TV or surfing the net. Art becomes a hobby, something to be indulged in when inspiration hits and there's nothing else going on.
Why does this happen?
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Take a break from your day and peruse this inspiring collection of the 100 best first lines from novels, courtesy of the American Book Review:
100 Best First Lines from Novels
Which is your favorite? Comment below.
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If you haven't found Steve Pavlina's blog yet, "Personal Development for Smart People," I highly recommend it.
Steve is always pushing himself to the limits in his attempt to discover ways to enhance his productivity, efficiency, and money flow, and his latest idea seemed like one of those destined to crash and burn.
Steve is thinking about giving up his copyright.
That's right, his entire life's work, which he describes as "2 million words of content, enough to fill 25 books," would become free to copy, distribute, and rewrite as anyone sees fit.
Now, for anyone who writes, copyright is sacrosanct. Plagiarism is one of the seven deadly sins, banishing the evil-doer to the darkest depths of hell. No one has the right to take our words and pass them off as their own.
But what if the words we write aren't our own?
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There are some dilemmas that twist and tear at you in the depths of night, haunting you with their inescapable consequences. To choose this career or that one? To marry this person or wait? To stick with a bad job or face a volatile job market?
Then there is the dilemma that rips at the heart of every writer:
To make a living by writing, or to make a living and still try to write?
I've been there. I'm sure you've been there. Most of us will always struggle with that dilemma, even if we're ostensibly making a living from words.
"Making a living as a writer" very rarely involves writing whatever you want and getting paid for it. Rather, commercial writers write what they're told to write. It's like coloring in the lines: you're given a drawing and told to fill it in with these specific colors in this specific style ... and if you don't do it the way you're told, you won't get paid. That's not exactly what you where thinking of when you dreamed of making a living writing, is it?
So should we just "give up" and write in the scarce snippets of time we can snatch away from daily life? Not necessarily.
The way I see it, we have three options:
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I've been slow on the blogging front recently due to the demands of finishing off my two latest books. Yes, they're both e-books, and they're both available online.
One thing I've noticed as a writer is that, when I have a big writing project on, I don't want to work on anything else. My subconscious mind is churning away on what I've written and what I have yet to write, and I don't want to dilute its focus by switching to less important tasks. Some of my best ideas come to me at random times during the day, seemingly out of nowhere, and, if I don't act on them in the next 24 hours, I'll lose them for good.
Then there's the whole issue of momentum. When you run out of steam on a project, it's hard to rekindle that initial fire that fueled those first thirty pages. Being excited to sit down at the computer each morning is a gift, so ride it as long as you can. The world can wait.
So what are my latest books about?
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My husband asked me a question yesterday that I couldn't answer:
"Isn't it a tad ironic," he said, "for writers to join writing clubs?"
I had no idea what he meant.
"Well," he continued, "clubs seem to be the antithesis of what being a writer is about. Writing is all about creativity and self-expression, while clubs tend to be filled with people who want to belong and do the same thing."
He explained that he wasn't advocating the lonely writer scratching away in a garret. Rather, he just thought that clubs, with their membership lists and monthly meetings and raffles and fund-raising, just don't seem to reflect the ethos of the great literary mind. He preferred the image of the writer gathering in the pub with fellow writer friends to shout and debate and discuss deep matters.
His comments led me to reflect on the nature of our writerly associations.
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There's one thing I've never understood.
Why is there such a divide between literary writing and commercial writing?
It's the difference between The Da Vinci Code and The Sea. One won the Booker Prize, but the other sold over 80 million copies. Which book was the real success? The one the critics adored but the masses ignored, or the one the masses flocked to purchase despite critical derision?
As writers, our answer to this question is critical. Students of creative writing programs tend to aspire to literary acclaim, but adults with families to support find it difficult to justify spending years writing a book that will only sell a few thousand copies.
So, which would YOU prefer:
To win a prestigious literary award ...
Or to make so much money off your book and its spin-offs that you're swimming in it?
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It's not easy to put your thoughts down on paper in the hope that someone will want to read them.
The world is flush with words already. A cursory scan of the millions of personal blogs online reveals that everyone has the same hope as you, e.g., that their thoughts and experiences and opinions are worthy of an audience. Then there are the newspapers, magazines and books published every day. What do YOU have to say that's any different or better than what's already being published?
Thoughts like those are what kept me silenced for a decade of my writing life. Don't let them silence you.
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