Welcome Wednesday – Free Advice

Welcome Wednesday – Free Advice

Welcome to this week’s edition of Welcome Wednesdays!

 

There’s an old saying that “free advice is worth what you pay for it,” but in my time as a self-published author, I’ve found that isn’t remotely true.  I’ve gotten lots of great advice from other authors who have been only too willing to help their fellows out.

So today, I’m asking you authors to do exactly that.  In the comments, share with us some good advice about writing.  Do you have a really effective method for beating writer’s block?  A trick to help you write better dialogue?  A way to catch more typos when you’re reviewing and rewriting your work?  a productivity tip that helped you write 2,000 words a day instead of 1,000?  Whatever it is, tell us!

And please be sure to leave a link about you and your books so we can follow you!

 

I’ll begin:

 

One thing I’ve found that helps me is training myself not to worry and fuss over every single word in the first draft.  The most important thing is to get the words down.  They can be edited and rewritten and tweaked once you have them written in the first place, but you can’t rewrite something that’s only in your head.

It’s really easy to fall into the mindset that everything has to be perfect right from the start, but then you run into the problem of the perfect being the enemy of the good, and that’s such an easy trap to fall into…but very difficult to get out of!

 

Now it’s your turn!

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10 Replies to “Welcome Wednesday – Free Advice”

  1. The biggest advice I could give is commitment. Unless you’re willing to commit to writing every day, commit to learning your craft, and commit to succeeding, I don’t think you can get very far. Commitment doesn’t mean full time, it means that you will find those 20, 40, 60 minutes a day to write. No excuses no breaks. You write until you’re good at it. You write until you’re finishing books that you’re proud of. You have to want this with everything that is in you, or it will never be more than a hobby.

  2. My advice is this… don’t take the ‘rules’ too much to heart. They can truncate creativity. The history of literature shows a rotation of trends between showing and telling, action and being verbs, description and starkness. Regardless of what the trend is today, cultivate your own voice and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong.

    Also, reading your book on an e-reader shows up more typos than a computer screen 😉

    http://www.amazon.com/Simone-Beaudelaire/e/B00CIUPNWK/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1467200304&sr=8-2-ent

  3. Great advice from everyone. I would advise finishing what you start. So many writers don’t do this because they don’t make a commitment as Cassy said in the first comment. You have to make time to write and make everyone else respect that time, which they will do if they care about your happiness. After you finish the story you started, the second thing is to put it aside. The longer the better. Let it grow cold as you work on something new. Then give it a read as you edit cold. So many things besides just typos come to light when you’re not close to the work.

    http://www.amazon.com/Patricia-Preston/e/B0060DJ5W0

  4. Writer`s block…. When I am stuck, I send my work to one of my readers. We collaborate when she IA finished. Her critique helps pull me out of being blocked. So, try a reader. Listen to them. Don’t take their as advice personally. Readers are our best asset.

  5. The best advice I can give is the best advice I ever got: Keep writing. Get the first draft done. You can’t edit/polish it if you don’t finish that first draft.

    It’s called a “rough draft” for a reason. Go ahead, give yourself permission to write a messy rough draft. Power through the self-doubts, tell your inner critic to shut up, and just keep writing.

    http://www.amazon.com/A.J.-Goode/e/B00ILB6ESW

  6. I would say don’t get too bogged down with advice and just write what you feel you should.

    But if you want a little gem, listen to your writing spoken. I use a text-to-voice bit of software. You can hear things that don’t sound right easier than seeing them in lines you know well.

    Wendy Lou Jones. x

    http://www.wendyloujones.weebly.com

  7. I write 20th historical fiction. One resource I have found to be a fountain of information is YouTube. It used to be that if an author wanted to write about a place, she would either have to know the area, or would need to visit in person in order to accurately describe that location. With YouTube, we are now able to get first-hand views of so many places, even in the past too! My current series is a WWII love story, and I have scenes that took place in Chicago and New York. I could not believe I was able to find so many useful footages of these places from the 1940s! You can look up places and people from any time within the last 100 years (from the 1920s to the 80s, 90s, and today) and find out what the place is like, how people dressed, how they behaved. When I needed to write my battle scenes, I was also able to find tons of footages to enable me to accurately describe not just the visual scenes, but also the sounds. YouTube is an incredible resource for any author who wish to write an authentic backdrop for their stories.

    https://amzn.com/B01AXTIFWC

  8. Never edit your own stuff. Pay for a stranger to edit it, after you’ve done everything you can to get it into shape.

    And grow a thick skin for this: an editor is not there to prop up your ego. A good editor will be tough on you, but will make your manuscript the best it can be. Yes: it will hurt. But better that than a slew of public rebukes in the form of 2-star reviews on Amazon, right?

  9. I give all sorts of advice depending on the sort of writing but the ones I always mention, for all types of writing are:

    Writing and editing are separate disciplines; put as much time as possible between finishing a draft and going back to edit it..
    Always read your work aloud and listen hard as you do so. That highlights far more problem areas, punctuation ‘mistakes’, unnoticed repetitions, ugly rhythms and other issues than any silent read does.
    Write too much and cut. If you do it the other way – too little and add – it always shows.

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