What Would I Tell An Aspiring Writer?

1) Get used to waiting. (That's different than be patient.)

2)Don't get too used to waiting.

Writing is all about waiting. Waiting for the idea to ripen, waiting for the words to come, waiting for the sliver of time in your life to get time to write, waiting to hear from critique groups, agents, editors, cover artists, marketing people, booksellers, and finally readers. It can be exhausting. And discouraging.

The single most important thing I can say about that is - don't get too comfortable with it. Push. Many times I look back and know I should have pushed more. Pushed myself, pushed my agent, pushed for my books. I should have written more (right now I am finally finishing the manuscript of my heart, which I should have done sooner but I was waiting to hear something... anything... from editors).

DO SOMETHING. Even if it's a misstep, taking action will give you a sense of possibility, of power that just waiting for everything to work out robs you of. Write something else. Finish a piece. Create a website or blog. Go to writer's conferences. Learn, learn, learn, about craft, about new ways of publishing, about other writers, about the industry, about your own strengths and weaknesses. Then put what you learn into action. Try. Fail. Try again.

I have been in writer's groups all over the country. I have always been the most published writer in them. I have not always been the most talented writer in them. The biggest difference was that I did something. A lot of somethings. I kept at it.

I think it's summed up in a fortune cookie I got recently: Your ship is safe in harbor. But that's not what ships are for.

The weeks before I got my first book offer I stuck a note up on my bulletin board by my desk that said - If your ship hasn't come in, swim out to it.

Sink or swim. Set sail. Do something. Today.

Words Is Sneaky

I don't mean the way words sometimes say things we didn't intend, or that we DID intend but thought we were so clever that we had tucked the meaning down deep inside but it came shining right through anyway. That would be tricky. Make no mistake -- words is tricky.

But they are also sneaky. As in they sneak up on you. Usually when you are doing things that make it hard to catch them. Like when you send a note to an editor and say "I have this great idea for a book that would be a great idea for a series, would you be interested?" and the editors says "yes". That's when the words -- not necessarily the words you expected -- will start swirling, and stewing, and simmering and brewing. Glug. Glub. Blub. Surprise!

They have formed themselves into a whole 'nother story and climbed from the primordial ooze that is the writer's mind fully formed. Well, as formed as words ever get, which is pretty loose. Sometimes they stand there demanding attention until you crawl into your chair and decide to get them in shape. Sometimes the take off and carry you right along with them. Sometimes they growl at you and snap and slither under the porch and you know those words and their story will be with you a while before you can poke them enough to get them out and onto the page.

Writers talk about books being like children? Well, they are (not that my children ever slithered under the porch but as teens, they did scurry into their rooms for extended periods of time) Words, like kids, keep you up nights, thought. They make you laugh and cry and doubt yourself. They don't always behave the way you'd like.

So be warned. Words is sneaky. They may be lurking around you right now, waiting for a moment to start ganging up on you.

Annie sighs and thinks of that great idea she pitched the editor that she can't seem to write the first scene for then at the book that she IS working on that is SO NOT what she wanted to do in so many ways.

Sneaky, I tells ya.