The writing advice on offer here is more than mere ruminations on the craft. I speak from the experience accumulated from a life of being an exceptional wordsmith. If my directions assist you in finding your direction, I am happy.
What does not make me happy:
People who think writing is easy, just because they can string sentences and paragraphs together with perfect grammar. Shakespeare, Borges, Chaucer, Tolstoy, Woolf et.al had the same ability but see the difference. If writing fiction is easy, we’d all do it and we’d all do it well .
People who think writers are bums and taking the easy way out. We are not sane enough to do so.
People who do not respect books and literature.
It is fine to be perfectly ignorant about certain subjects, but just because I know nothing about it does not give me the right to denigrate those in the field.
Other writers who snipe at other writers. Why do these snipers believe that there’s only so much success that goes around? Take your place in the success queue and wait your turn.
I don’t like snipers either! I’ve only bumped into a few ‘negative writers’ who seem to want to discourage others, but once I find them, I avoid them
I liked the list of things to do to be a miserable writer – pretty accurate!
Amen. Amen. And Amen!
love the list! guilty (as of just moments after reading your fiction for selangor times) of no. 1. Also, nos. 5, and 6. Oh, and a little of 7. Doing the expected (or what’s expected of me) lands me in my current 9 to 5.
Funny that no. 4 always pop up in writers’ advice, but I don’t like limiting myself to what i do know. Writing about what I don’t know makes me work at it harder and there’s satisfaction in it.
Your “How to fee miserable as an artist” list is so true. I’ve caught myself doing some of these from time to time. The ultimate truth is that writers have to write for themselves first and foremost.
“We are not sane enough to do so.”……ha ha ha