Have you lost that new writer feeling?

Published on by Jean M. Cogdell

That love at first written word?

You know what I’m talking about. Don’t act like you don’t. That first blush of prose,  your heart racing with each word you write. Oh, and remember when your first short story or flash fiction story was published? Ah, love sweet love.

Short story, flash fiction, and Drabble – writing the great American novel couldn’t be much harder. Wrong. I have so much to learn.

Thank you, Sacha Black, for your recent post.

7 LESSONS I WISH SOMEONE HAD TAUGHT ME BEFORE I STARTED WRITING

It feels good to realize I’m not the only writer on the planet to stumble through the writing process.

I too had to face the fact, learning takes time. Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks but it may take a little longer and a lot more patience.

What I gleaned from Sacha’s lessons:

  • I’m not alone. We can all learn to write better.
  • Writing a short story is not the same as writing a novel.
  • Research is a black hole.
  • Studying is a black hole.
  • Reading can suck you into a black hole.
  • BLACK HOLES will distract me from writing.
  • Focus on learning one writing technique at a time.
  • Feedback should come from objective writers.
  • Benchmark what other authors write. Deconstruct specific sections, dialog and figure out the why and how.
  • Break down competition. Covers, chapters, length, etc. How will mine stack up?
  • Make friends. Writer friends who tell me the truth. Sometimes the truth is overrated.
  • Write-I should make more time to write. Shouldn’t we all?

Sacha goes into more detail on her blog, and you’ll probably get something totally different than I did so click and read the whole thing. You’ll be glad you did.

Were you naive when you first began writing?

What have you learned since you wrote your first story/book?

If you could share one lesson with the beginning writer (you), what would it be?

I HOPE YOU TAKE A MINUTE AND FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA, JUST CLICK ON THE BUTTONS BELOW. I’LL LEAVE A LIGHT ON.

    

19 thoughts on “Have you lost that new writer feeling?”

  1. Pingback: Looking back at the best of 2019 – Jean's Writing

  6. If I could share one lesson that I never seem to learn myself is do anything to constrain how much time you spend. Whatever works. Set like an alarm clock or timer. Write something a given period of time before you HAVE to go be somewhere. Or I can fall into an endless circle of black holes. Only thing that works sometimes for me is writing like an hour before I just have to be out the door for something. I don’t want to leave it unfinished and can force myself not to spend the end of time because I have somewhere to go. When writing, time can be both your best friend and worst enemy. Friendemy. And can burn you out til you write like me 🤣🤔

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      1. I do too but then next thing I know I just wrote a novel that no one would read and spent way too much time. I still need to try out the timer – I think that’s hard with self employment and writing is no one else is paying attention to your time. You can spend entirely too much or spend no time. I’m trying to get it in the mindset of a traditional type job – so appointments can help because it’s somewhere I have to be and another person depending on that. But otherwise timers are my best idea for shortening how much time I spend. Increasing it when I don’t feel like writing…yeah no ideas there!

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          1. Will do! I may need to set a second one to remember – awful time management. I think when writing you really need some time management abilities. Or you’ll have a timer to remind you of the timer haha. There are apps and browser plugins that will more or less restrict what you can do (like parental controls) for a certain period of time. Another thing I should do and would recommend to any new writer that has trouble with time management. Very easy to fall down the google rabbit hole. But if it kicks you out perhaps not so much. Now I sound like a toddler ha.

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