Motivation Monday: Write What You Love
Don’t write for anyone but yourself. You’re going to encounter lots of people… Dad, I’m looking at you… who don’t understand your work. I’ve been writing books since I was twelve, and of course, looking back, those old books are what I like to call, garbage. I was young, knew nothing about story structure, character arcs, blah blah blah. But what I did know is I loved my work.
I loved my work because I wrote it for myself. I wrote what I wanted to read, not what some magic demographic wanted, not what my teacher wanted, but what I myself wanted. My dad to this day will ask why I don't write “real world” stuff. He grew up in 1970s Queens. His favorite movies are Serpico, The French Connection and Goodfellas. He’s not going to understand the nuances of fairy and mermaid lore. He’s also not going to want to read love scenes, especially when they’re written by his daughter. I will always argue my work is rooted in the real world, whether or not there is magic or fantasy surrounding it. The point of this diatribe is if you’re not true to yourself, if you’re not writing something you love, then why are you writing it?
Writing to appeal to the masses, or writing to please someone else, isn’t going to do much for your creative soul. You’ll end up feeling empty after, and there won’t be much satisfaction. Write from your heart, for yourself, and your people will find you.
Writing Wednesday: Drowned Character Bio - Dylan
First of all, this. song. I listened to it on repeat while editing Drowned. Just the way Noah Kahan sings with so much passion, the imagery he conjures up in his lyrics, I could go on and on. I digress.
Dylan: sarcastic, charming, a mischievous smile to melt you into the same goo Capri Sun does. Tanned skin, piercing green eyes, a perfectly toned body from long days spent working on the ocean. But for all his boyish charm, he’s stubborn and emotionally stunted; crushed by the weight of his mother’s addictions.
Everyday is the same. Go out on the boat, catch just enough fish to survive, hope mom doesn’t find your money before you can pay the rent, have a pint or two at the bar, repeat. What’s the alternative? Find a bigger boat with more success so mom has more money for pills? Or, maybe, just maybe, leave the toxicity.
But how can you leave when you’re all she has? She wasn’t always like this. Her face wasn’t always sunken and gray. She was bright, she was loving. She held you when the lightning flashed outside the window. She fought for you when your third grade teacher dumped your messy desk all over the floor in front of your classmates. She loved you, endlessly. How could you forget all she did for you? How could you abandon her?
This was Dylan’s plague. To sacrifice his life for the memory of what his mother once was.
*TikTok is from my other profile, before I decided to split off and create one with less clutter.
Tip Tuesday: Finish Him!
Or her. Or it. Or whatever pet name you call your work. Finish it. It doesn’t matter if it’s clunky. It doesn’t matter if it’s ugly. The point is to finish it.
The beautiful thing about the writing process is nothing is permanent. Writing is about rewriting. It’s a mantra you’ve heard your professors and mentors tell you many times, and they’re right.
If you keep rewriting as you’re writing your first draft, you are bogging yourself down without seeing the big picture. You need to finish it before you can see the forest through the trees. You can’t map out the character arcs if they’re never complete. You can’t see what you’re trying to say if you never finish saying it.
Do not be a writer who has twenty unfinished works. If you’re bored with it, take a break and wait for inspiration to strike up again, but don’t abandon it. This is one of the worst habits you can get yourself into, starting a new project before finishing an old one.
Instead, trudge through the muck and mud until you’ve completed it. Even if you hate it and the plot meanders, you can edit it. Remember, writing is about rewriting. Just finish it! You can perfect it draft by draft once that first one is complete.
Monday Motivation: Just Keep Swimming
A little Monday Motivation that I need to hear often; “just keep swimming.” Yes, the all-knowing, great and powerful Dory has bestowed upon the universe one of the greatest tidbits of advice. This applies to really anything, especially if you are actually in the ocean on your own hero’s journey, but let’s think about it as writers.
No. No. No. No. Plus a whole bunch more. Generic rejections. Sending queries out into an abyss. Radio silence. Lots of loneliness, self pity and questioning your talent.
But, remember what the wondrous Dory has told us: just keep swimming. We will hear hundreds of noes before that life-changing yes. In many cases, we will simply hear nothing at all. But when we stop swimming, when we stop trying, that’s when we’ve really lost the battle.
You have a story to tell. It beats from within you. Don’t rob the world of reading it because you couldn’t keep swimming. Don’t rob yourself of what you’re meant to accomplish. You know in your heart you have what it takes, so please, for your future audience and yourself, just keep swimming.
