Asides

Monday Discovery: Tips on How to Survive and Thrive

/ Gerry Wilson / Leave a comment

Here’s an addition to today’s Monday Discovery: At Live, Write, Thrive, C. S. Lakin features a guest post by *Brian Feinblum.

Brian’s “16 Tips on How to Survive and Thrive as a Writer” resonated with me particularly because of the recent conversations on this blog about how each member of the writing partnership or group–the writer and the reader–can be most productive.

To whet your appetite, here are his first points:

  • Always believe in yourself. You have something to offer others, something worth sharing, something unique and special.
  • Know the experts are not always right. There is rarely one singular way to do anything. Find your own style and way to do what you need to do to succeed.
  • Never accept defeat. Change course, yes. Give up, no. Admit you made an error or mistake but don’t throw in the towel.
  • Learn from others. Copy the habits of successful people when it suits you but don’t be just like them. The world needs you—not a replica of someone else.
  • Realize you can improve every aspect of your writing, editing, publicity, marketing, sales, distribution, etc. Push the bar higher and keep reaching beyond your comfort zone.
  • Stop making excuses or looking for reasons you fall short.

Doesn’t this make you want to read more? It’s an affirming post for a writer at any stage of development. Go read the rest now: 16 Tips on How to Survive and Thrive as a Writer.

*Brian Feinblum blogs at Book Marketing Buzz Blog.

Follow-up to the Sunday Wordle, June 10

/ Gerry Wilson / Leave a comment

All right. I couldn’t stand it.

I had to go in and make just a few edits to “All Fall Down,” a little story based on today’s Wordle at The Sunday Whirl. Nothing substantial. Got rid of some repetition, some wordiness. If it’s going to flash, it needs to be slick. It needs to move right along.

Wordle 60, June 10

So read it again, if you like, and see if you can spot the edits. Or not.

If it turns into a story, I’ll let you know.

While you’re at it, before you end your surfing for today, you might check out some other Wordle responses by my poet-friends: Veronica Roth, Margo Roby, De Jackson, and  Jo Ann Jordan. There are many others over at The Sunday Whirl, of course. Go to “Mr. Linky.”

Thanks to everyone who stopped by today!

Lucky 7 Meme Challenge

/ Gerry Wilson / Leave a comment

E. B. (Erin) Pike at Writerlious has tagged me for the Lucky 7 Meme Challenge. Thanks, Erin!

Now it’s my turn to post from a work-in-progress and tag seven more writers to do the same.

The rules:

  • Go to page 77 of your current WIP manuscript.
  • Go to line 7.
  • Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written. No cheating!
  • Tag 7 authors.
  • Let each and every one of them know.

Here are seven lines from Spirit Lamp, a work of literary historical fiction set during WWI in rural Mississippi. The novel is complete, and I just finished making a tough revision pass through it. Now it’s on to considering my readers’ responses and composing the dreaded query letter!

In these lines the main character is remembering going hunting with her father. They  begin in mid-sentence. She walks into the woods, following her father’s lantern:

. . . dizzying arc a few feet in front of her, but she had learned long ago to step where he stepped. Now she knew the way as well as he. When they got to the woods, he snuffed the lantern out and made his way silently among the trees. Now and then he stopped and held out his arm, a signal to Leona to be still. It meant he had stopped to listen, or he had heard or sensed movement.

She could see him in the graying light. He pointed to the base of a pine tree and motioned for her to sit. He moved twenty yards away and sat beneath another tree. She could just make him out, so still, his shape darker than the dark around him. The tree trunk became part of the . . .

Now for the tags, writers! I hope you’ll accept. Please follow the rules above, post your WIP lines, and pass the challenge on. Feel free to post here in a comment, too. As E. B. says, it’s a great way for us to share bits of our works-in-progress.

First, here’s to my fellow literary fiction peeps over at the Facebook MNINB group:

And to round out the seven . . .

I’d love to add more, but I’ll leave that to these fine folks.

 Thanks again, Erin, for the tag. This was fun!