Many people have an abstract idea about the muse – or more to the point, the muses, minor goddesses who were often found in Apollo’s company. They represented the arts with each being assigned a specialty.
The Muses:
Choose one – and write a story about her, maybe you run into her at your local coffee bar, or shopping. What does she do, say, need?
“Don’t be afraid of failure. The reality is that most people successes rise out of the ashes of their previous failures.”
From a new documentary on Netflix titled Creativity. The narrator is talking to the creator of Game of Thrones. The creator is talking about how many times he’s failed.
I started this to say – what are you afraid of?
Then I wanted to ask – what if there was no such thing as fear? What would you do? What could you do?
I want you to think about that. What if fear was not in the human range of emotion or thought?
I think I read Writing Down the Bones maybe more than 20 years ago. I do believe it’s still on my bookshelf. I keep books that have spoken to me.
Although one website says it’s a good book for beginning writers, I think we might all find some inspiration in these pages.
In yoga, sometimes we go back to level one, we go back to the training. After so many years of doing it, so many teachers putting their own twists on it, so many times we’ve worked with (or around) an injury – it’s good to go back to the basics.
I see nothing wrong with doing that in writing either.
I’m planning to pick it up again – see what else I can learn, what I might relearn.
For most writers, getting a contract from a traditional publishing house is the golden biscuit, the grand reward after a struggle with run-on sentences, superfluous commas, and tired clichés. Many people will then spend years looking for an agent, and then have an agent try to place their work with a publishers, big or small.
But here’s reality: unless you’re J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, you’re almost certainly not going to receive the red carpet treatment you’re no doubt envisioning. Once upon a time, not a long time ago, self-publishing was considered the literary outback, the place for hacks. Now, in an ironic twist, we just may be witnessing the reversal of fortune. The Bix Six seem to be wallowing in their formulas. Meanwhile, much fresh thinking is coming from self-published authors who build their followings online. So rather than wait for your genius to be appreciated, here are six reasons you should consider being self-published:
Your hired editor may suggest changes, and you should listen. But ultimately you stand or fall on the product. You won’t have to deal with the agent who refuses to read a manuscript because she never looks at anything that begins with dialogue, or one who says she won’t consider a novel written in the first person, or one who says the work cannot have a “Prologue” or an “Afterward.” Ask yourself if a reader ever put a book back on the bookstore shelf for any of those reasons and you’ll begin to see how silly and random the process can be.
With self-publishing, your works can live on forever. Or, if later on your freshman effort embarrasses you, you can make it disappear with the click of a mouse.
If you’re unsure how to design a cover (and it involves a lot more than putting your title over a picture and your name on the bottom), google some freelance artists who do it. Study their work and contact the ones you like. If you don’t want to shell out the cash, and you have access to some design tools yourself, find covers of comparable works and study what you like, then try to imitate it as best you can.
John Grabowski worked in advertising, television news and public relations before daring to write his first novel. Entertaining Welsey Shaw was praised by Kirkus Reviews for being witty, fast-paced, and “filled with flirtatious banter.” A collection of his shorter fiction, Violet Rothko & Other Stories, will be published in September 2019. authorjohngrabowski.com
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Thanks, John!
I’ve finished my Tana French detective series and didn’t want to go to bed without another book in hand. (Nevermind there are three on my bedside table).
I began browsing my bookshelf, which is semi-organized: books I’ve read and loved. Books I want to read. School books. Writing books. and, of course, Poe books
I also have something mixed in that would seem, at first glance, not to belong. Books on psychology, the law, philosophy. I assume many writer’s bookshelves are this way.
A writer needs a wide variety of knowledge.
I know we have google at our disposal; however, I find reading books about, for example, the Psychology of Marketing allows me to get an in depth look that a wikipage or a few short articles are not going to give me. This allows me to create a more realistic character or more thorough background to make the story more believable.
For West End, I needed to understand two things, the idea of an absent or unloving mother, and the different forms depression can take. Anxiety runs throughout my work from Of Strays and Exes to Life of Clouds – which features children affected in different ways by the disappearance of their father.
I’ve heard handymen say they are the jack of all trades. I think writers are akin to that. We need to learn many things in order to live many lives.
Turn off as many lights as you can bear. Except, of course, a little book light or candle so you can write.
As your eyes adjust, you’ll be able to see things, outlines, shapes; write about the darkness surrounding you, what you can see, what you can’t see, and what you wish you could see.
I was looking up taboo topics in America. It’s different for many cultures. In America, sex, race, politics, and religion are among the ones that make most people uncomfortable.
The problem with these topics is the ignorance surrounding them. Many people have insufficient information and are uncertain how to talk about the topics.
A good way to start is to open the conversation admitting to ignorance. I’m not sure that works as a writer – but we should be humble and avoid making blanket statements. But I have always believed part of being a writer was to educate people.
I don’t know that I’ve crossed any lines (no angry emails have appeared in my inbox), Perhaps I’ve been subtle enough to make someone think but not offend anyone. (Except possibly with “Harvey Levin Can’t Die.” 🙂
And although some people feel that is their job to “wake people up” by offending them, I take a different stance. While I am an honest person, it is my goal to be more effective than offensive.
I wonder if anyone has taken up any of these – or other – taboo topics and what the response was?
I was thinking how few people with disabilities are featured on regular television shows and movies. And rarely do we see people with disabilities in fiction, unless they are the main character.
There are a number of children’s book, teen books, and mainstream novels wherein a physical disability is the main feature and/ part of the main character and therefore the thrust of the storyline, but I think we need to incorporate people with disabilities into our secondary and background characters.
In one show I watch, they had to replace a minor character, a secretary who might be seen once or twice a week, and be required to answer a mundane question like, “Where’s the boss?” This show (which shall remain nameless) receives kudos for being among the first (many years ago) to feature minority characters, an interracial affair, gay characters, and, now, even a gay relationships; yet, they don’t have any characters with disabilities.
It’s really up to the writers – us – to push this envelop. We don’t need to know the whole back story if our main character walks into an office to say, “Where’s the boss?” and receives the same sprite answer, “if only someone would tell me!” from someone in a wheelchair.
Noreen Lace 
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