Becoming a Writer-DCUM Writers What Are Your Tips?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, consider this: Instead of people criticizing your work imagine that no one will ever read it.

With the advent of the internet, writing became ubiquitous. Virtually everyone is a writer now.

The only way to write is as though it won't be read.

^ Criticizing or praising.

Agree. You can't leave the criticism, but take the praise.

I like TSNTYAW podcast with Bianca Marais and the #AmWriting (who always ends "keep your butt in the chair, and your head in the game").

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ll bite. I’m taking a brain break from writing (on deadline) to be with you on DCUM. So if you’re interested in a glimpse of the glamorous writing life, I’m Exhibit A, toiling past midnight Don’t ask me to compute my “hourly rate.” I do love what I do. It’s a labor of love. Or maybe it’s just a labor. Sometimes it makes me want to pull out my eyelashes and hurl my computer across the room. I’m not sure there’s any “best” or “right” (or “write?”) path to becoming a writer. I write nonfiction books and essays that draw on my specific area of expertise. So for me, “becoming a writer” actually meant “training to do something else.” I subscribe to the adage, “write what you know.” (But make it funnier and smarter and anchor it with stories to make it memorable.) When you pitch, editors are going to want to know three things: why now, why you, and who is your audience. If you want to publish what you write, you’re going to need to figure out the answer to those questions. In the meantime, keep a journal, or jot down notes in a google doc. You’re a writer when you start writing. As one last cautionary note, if you do publish, know that the “comments section” might obliterate those nice feelings you’ve been carrying all these years about your potential. I’m not telling you this to dissuade you from writing; I’m telling you this to dissuade you from reading the comments.

The comments are the worst. When I was a journalist I always told the people I was writing about not to read the comments, but I always read the comments. My last book came out five years ago and I still check Goodreads every day to see if anyone's said anything nice about it, but usually it's very mean. Comments are the worst. NEVER read the comments.

Goodreads is the worst. Those people hate authors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Pick up The Artist’s Way and work through the program. I promise, by the end you’ll know exactly what you want to write.

2. Get comfortable with the drafting process. First drafts are always sh!tty. That’s okay. Sh!tty first drafts lead to good second drafts and fantastic third drafts.

Write the thing you want to write. Then rewrite it from scratch. Then rewrite it from scratch a third time. This is different than editing, you start the entire thing over each time.

Expensive creative writing programs are basically this - they just tell you to keep rewriting it. Save your money on courses and just keep drafting.

For books, I like Dreyer’s English and Consider This by Chuck Pahlanuk (the author of fight club).

I will add to this Bird by Bird and The War of Art. But yes, the way to become a writer is a** in chair - you sit there and write. There will always be a reason not to write today, but if you want to be a writer you have to write.

I have to remind myself this all the time, as I am procrastinating working on my own next novel. I have a novel out on submission with publishers now and the limbo of that, plus general laziness and untreated ADHD, makes it awfully hard to dive in.

Let me also suggest that writing classes really are a good way to get going. It's not so much that you will learn a lot about writing in the class, but you will have deadlines and an audience. Both those things are important.

Have to snicker at Bird by Bird suggestion. Author talks all about working hard and sticking to it but had major connections to the industry / father I think was a famous novelist. Couldn’t get through the first chapter. Truly insufferable.

[Anonymous]

Now I would say the book ‘How to Write’ by Richard Rhodes is worth a read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, real writers who actually make a living off of it aren't wasting their time writing on DCUM. But I'm sure you're about to get lots of responses from pompous posters anyway.

haha, this is the funniest thing I have read all week. "Real writers" (including me) are notorious for procrastinating and killing time at places like DCUM, Reddit, and of course, the biggest time sink of all ... writer Twitter.

ANYWAY.

I've done about every kind of writing you can do professionally and am currently making my living as a novelist (traditionally published).

If you were my student, I'd ask you to write your original post over again, without any mention of what others think you should do. It really, really does not matter if the entire world wants you to be a writer. Do YOU want to be a writer? Because they will not be there to hold your hand and bail you out when you're doing the deep work. It has to come from within.

What do you like to read? What kinds of topics are you drawn to?

If your answer is "I don't read much ..." then you need to start. Pay attention to beginnings, midpoints, and endings. If you're interested in fiction, pay attention to characters and setting. Look at the writing on a sentence level. Read stuff out loud. Find the places where it sounds awkward and try rewriting it.

Find a way to make writing part of your daily routine. Even though I am definitely procrastinating today, I know my butt will remain planted in this chair until I get my 1000 words. You don't have to have that as a minimum--maybe 15 minutes a day would be a good place to start. And this is just a minimum, you can always write more. But pick a baseline you can commit to. I also journal daily--very short entries, usually 3-5 sentences. But it is a commitment.

I think this is excellent advice!

I, too, wondered if YOU want to be a writer. Couldn't really pick up on that from your initial post.

I agree with reading as much as you can and developing a critical eye. This includes the newspaper.

I also agree that you should start with journaling.

It can be a lifelong hobby, or it can be a profession. It's mine. I feel very lucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This post will not prove this at all, however I have been told by multiple people that I should "become a writer." My earliest memory of this was in 7th grade--my teacher, who I despised actually, pulled me aside one day and told me I had a gift and should consider becoming a writer because I communicate effectively as though I'm talking directly to the reader and that is difficult to achieve. I ignored her at the time. However, throughout college and into my post-college years, I would hear the same things from professors, friends, and colleagues. A boyfriend of mine in my 20s told me point blank that I should become a writer and that my emails to him reminded him of his favorite author, Dave Barry. At the time I was completely floored that someone could even liken my writing to that of Dave Barry, but never pursued it. Then this past weekend, my friend looked me straight in the eye and told me I should really consider becoming a writer and it just struck me again--why do people keep telling me this and I don't act on it? The problem is that I really don't have anything interesting to write about. I haven't lived an interesting life and I just don't have any novel ideas to write about, but this message keeps being sent my way so maybe it's time to act on it. So, I have a question or several questions to any writers (published or unpublished) out there in the DCUM community--how did you get started? What did you do to pursue your love of writing? How did you begin this process? I can no longer ignore this message and I want to start honing this apparent skill, but I just don't know how, so I'm looking for some tips from writers out there. Do I just start getting words down on paper and go from there? Thanks and judging by this post, I'm sure you think I'm making this all up.

Writers write. It's easy -- all you do is sit down with a pen and paper or a typewriter or a computer and open a vein.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Pick up The Artist’s Way and work through the program. I promise, by the end you’ll know exactly what you want to write.

2. Get comfortable with the drafting process. First drafts are always sh!tty. That’s okay. Sh!tty first drafts lead to good second drafts and fantastic third drafts.

Write the thing you want to write. Then rewrite it from scratch. Then rewrite it from scratch a third time. This is different than editing, you start the entire thing over each time.

Expensive creative writing programs are basically this - they just tell you to keep rewriting it. Save your money on courses and just keep drafting.

For books, I like Dreyer’s English and Consider This by Chuck Pahlanuk (the author of fight club).

I will add to this Bird by Bird and The War of Art. But yes, the way to become a writer is a** in chair - you sit there and write. There will always be a reason not to write today, but if you want to be a writer you have to write.

I have to remind myself this all the time, as I am procrastinating working on my own next novel. I have a novel out on submission with publishers now and the limbo of that, plus general laziness and untreated ADHD, makes it awfully hard to dive in.

Let me also suggest that writing classes really are a good way to get going. It's not so much that you will learn a lot about writing in the class, but you will have deadlines and an audience. Both those things are important.

Have to snicker at Bird by Bird suggestion. Author talks all about working hard and sticking to it but had major connections to the industry / father I think was a famous novelist. Couldn’t get through the first chapter. Truly insufferable.

I am PP and that's fair - but I still think it's helpful to read. But yeah, peel back the layers and often people who are successful authors have a lot of support and advantages in there.

[Anonymous]

Trad published novelist here.

If you are talking about being a fiction writer you'd already be writing. It doesn't matter what other people say you should be doing.

I can tell you after years as a novelist that success comes to those who cannot stop writing -- they have so much to say -- not to those who are the "best" or most talented writers.

So pretty much the opposite of your situation.

It's the internal drive to tell stories that makes a successful writer, not their grammatical skills or ability to communicate clearly. Of course that helps, but the fire has to come from within.

Let me tell you that there is SO MUCH REJECTION in writing professionally that if you don't love it, and are not very self-motivated, you will not last.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Trad published novelist here.

If you are talking about being a fiction writer you'd already be writing. It doesn't matter what other people say you should be doing.

I can tell you after years as a novelist that success comes to those who cannot stop writing -- they have so much to say -- not to those who are the "best" or most talented writers.

So pretty much the opposite of your situation.

It's the internal drive to tell stories that makes a successful writer, not their grammatical skills or ability to communicate clearly. Of course that helps, but the fire has to come from within.

Let me tell you that there is SO MUCH REJECTION in writing professionally that if you don't love it, and are not very self-motivated, you will not last.

I'm one of the PPs above who has been told to write because of my skills. I think you are correct. Yes, I dread criticism from the general public, but I also think that while I could write and be decent at it, I don't think I'd love it. Because otherwise, I'd be doing it already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, real writers who actually make a living off of it aren't wasting their time writing on DCUM. But I'm sure you're about to get lots of responses from pompous posters anyway.

haha, this is the funniest thing I have read all week. "Real writers" (including me) are notorious for procrastinating and killing time at places like DCUM, Reddit, and of course, the biggest time sink of all ... writer Twitter.

ANYWAY.

I've done about every kind of writing you can do professionally and am currently making my living as a novelist (traditionally published).

If you were my student, I'd ask you to write your original post over again, without any mention of what others think you should do. It really, really does not matter if the entire world wants you to be a writer. Do YOU want to be a writer? Because they will not be there to hold your hand and bail you out when you're doing the deep work. It has to come from within.

What do you like to read? What kinds of topics are you drawn to?

If your answer is "I don't read much ..." then you need to start. Pay attention to beginnings, midpoints, and endings. If you're interested in fiction, pay attention to characters and setting. Look at the writing on a sentence level. Read stuff out loud. Find the places where it sounds awkward and try rewriting it.

Find a way to make writing part of your daily routine. Even though I am definitely procrastinating today, I know my butt will remain planted in this chair until I get my 1000 words. You don't have to have that as a minimum--maybe 15 minutes a day would be a good place to start. And this is just a minimum, you can always write more. But pick a baseline you can commit to. I also journal daily--very short entries, usually 3-5 sentences. But it is a commitment.

I get almost all my ideas from DCUM, Reddit, and Twitter. Also a great way to test ideas - if it gets a bunch of people riled up on an anonymous forum, it's a good topic for an article, blog, or social media post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, real writers who actually make a living off of it aren't wasting their time writing on DCUM. But I'm sure you're about to get lots of responses from pompous posters anyway.

haha, this is the funniest thing I have read all week. "Real writers" (including me) are notorious for procrastinating and killing time at places like DCUM, Reddit, and of course, the biggest time sink of all ... writer Twitter.

ANYWAY.

I've done about every kind of writing you can do professionally and am currently making my living as a novelist (traditionally published).

If you were my student, I'd ask you to write your original post over again, without any mention of what others think you should do. It really, really does not matter if the entire world wants you to be a writer. Do YOU want to be a writer? Because they will not be there to hold your hand and bail you out when you're doing the deep work. It has to come from within.

What do you like to read? What kinds of topics are you drawn to?

If your answer is "I don't read much ..." then you need to start. Pay attention to beginnings, midpoints, and endings. If you're interested in fiction, pay attention to characters and setting. Look at the writing on a sentence level. Read stuff out loud. Find the places where it sounds awkward and try rewriting it.

Find a way to make writing part of your daily routine. Even though I am definitely procrastinating today, I know my butt will remain planted in this chair until I get my 1000 words. You don't have to have that as a minimum--maybe 15 minutes a day would be a good place to start. And this is just a minimum, you can always write more. But pick a baseline you can commit to. I also journal daily--very short entries, usually 3-5 sentences. But it is a commitment.

I get almost all my ideas from DCUM, Reddit, and Twitter. Also a great way to test ideas - if it gets a bunch of people riled up on an anonymous forum, it's a good topic for an article, blog, or social media post.

I’ve always suspected this was happening. Some threads are just too nuts. Did you start there one about throwing balls at pools? 😊

[Anonymous]

hi OP. i think if YOU really wanted to be a writer, you would be writing already -- published or unpublished, public or private -- be it epic letters to friends, theater reviews for the local arts blog, Harry Potter fan fic once the kids go to bed, poems written in the margins of your work files, all of it.