Writing tip #33
People are going to criticize you, your ideas, your writing, and there is absolutely no avoiding that. You’re going to need to develop a hard outer-shell and take these things on the chin. Absorb only the hardships from which you can learn and teach yourself to cast any others aside.
Writing tip #32
If you’re ever feeling at the end of your tether- as though you’ll never make it, what’s the point, might as well give up now- just remember that Harry Potter was rejected by a dozen publishers before making it into the big bad world, and many other creditable works many more times than that.
Also take solace in the fact that you are not one of the publishers who rejected the billionaire writings of Miss Rowling!
I picked up a cotton-bound thesaurus that’d been laying out in the sping’s sun because I wanted another way to say “ Speechless” without having to say another word. You taught me all the ways to trace my outline without appearing to be a crime scene and for that I should thank you, but I’ve always liked words, so instead I’ll write you this poem. There’s a flying bird overhead going east to find gold, and I’m sitting here holding old gold chains and nattering out morse code with my pencil for them to send help, come west, come to me. Maybe I shouldn’t find comfort in the scars people draw on their bodies because I still have insecurities in me that I don’t know how to get rid of, either. These words are self-inflicted and they bleed through my chest when I forget to bandage them closely enough. I close my eyes and my thoughts turn hard like wax. These trees are all wicks and when I put a lighter to their roots all I get is a dose of aromatherapy and another forest fire somewhere inside of me.
My dad brought two roses to place on my uncles’s sick bed who told me, “you’re too much of a dreamer, Lucy”. My dad told me that I could never become a truly beautiful with words until I’ve seen more of the world outside of this patch of land and until I’ve collected enough memories beneath my nails to pick out a memoir. And I know, dad. I know. But I’m twenty and trying to create another world for people to escape into that doesn’t belong to us. When I’ve seen enough of the world to write six and a half billion stories in one, I’ll slip myself a dose of morphine and lay the world to rest with me. We don’t deserve this world. We don’t deserve these words. I want you to know that last night was the first night I saw you tear up because of something close to happiness, and I never want to see you cry again. Dad, I hope you’re happy for me. This is my universe that I’m building line by line. You know I always wanted to fall into a place where I could be completely free to be myself.Dad, this is it.
Writing tip #31
Compress your writing as tightly as you can. Read through and eliminate any parts you question. If the piece reads just as smoothly, leave out the excess. Condensed sentences pack more of a punch.
❝ Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
— Mark Twain
Sometimes in life, when something unexpectedly pleasant happens, you trace back as far as your memory serves you to relive the good you have done, finding a sense of entitlement, and then most of the time you find that you fall way short of deserving it at all. The biggest mistake would be in fixating on that, or even treating the moment as quotidian and neglecting to cherish every magical second of it; for every bit of it encapsulates the splendors of life, in good times and bad, as a reminder that life is intrinsically damn worthwhile.
❝ Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing not to put tomato in your fruit salad.
— Miles Kington
One of my favourite things about the Harry Potter series is the way the language grew older and more sophisticated with the characters, despite it not being a direct first person narrative.
Even the general lexical fields seemed to grow darker as the characters came out of their childhoods and into the instability of adolescence.
It’s as though she had us developing at the same rate as the protagonists no matter what our actual age was/is at the time of reading. I can go away now and read Philosopher’s Stone, and once again return to my 11 year old mentality. (Ahhhh a troll, Harry get out of there, ahhh god, nooo!)
She’s so talented, I could literally discuss this series forever. (Okay not literally forever, because that would be ages, but still, for quite some time).
Writing tip #30
Don’t be the person who wants to write. Be the person who writes. You’re an aspiring author? Wow, cool, so is that guy, and her, and him over there, the milkman, your teacher, the… you get the point.
You won’t get anywhere by wishing (no matter what Peter Pan might promise).
Writing tip #29
Take your character out and about with you. If you’re on the bus, imagine he/she is sat opposite you, but try not to think about it too hard.
What are they doing? Are they chewing their lip, biting their nails, drumming their fingers, do they smile at strangers, ignore strangers, lean their head against the window and close their eyes?
You can learn a lot about your own creations by letting them live in the real world this way.
