THE JOURNEY
For the Writers
Words by Tracey-anne
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Capture the feels on paper, as you are experiencing them, now, raw, and unedited. Save for a later day to use in your writing. A jar or book of feels for inspiration, all in your own unique voice. Journals are a great way to get back in touch with YOU and your writing style.
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If your heart is whispering a story, please listen, scribble that shit down. It doesn't matter that you're not academically taught. You can be as street as you are and still be worthy, the muse of creation said so. Just Do It! (trainer related pun intended) Write the story that makes you daydream hours, days, weeks, months, years away. Those whispers visit you for a reason.
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Never - Ever - Forget - you are magic, a perspective contained in skin. Let your special magic flow onto/into everything you love, including that blank page.
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If you could write completely uncensored,
free of judgement,
what would you write?
Writing is more about the journey than the destination
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Being published isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Writing is. - Anne Lamott (Just enjoy where you are right now)
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Write only those books you are absolutely convinced the muse wants you to. Not just books that are good ideas, but ideas that you’re personally passionate about and fit your heart, convictions, wiring, and style, not someone else’s. Never write a book you can’t pour yourself into 100%. Even 90% isn’t enough, because when you hit the rough spots, your heart needs to be totally in it. - Randy Alcorn
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To sound smart, you must stop trying to sound smart. Brilliant writing is simple writing, a relevant idea delivered clearly and directly. Read More
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If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do. – William Zinsser
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Dive in and be scared later. Simply take action and don’t overthink where this might end up. - Carol Tice
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Stop being in such a rush. Slow down and work on your craft. Read. Write. Learn. It takes time to develop your craft. - Tara Lazar
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Getting into the habit of sitting down and writing every day is essential.
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Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. – Ernest Hemingway
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Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln’s Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer’s rule applies: Have the courage to write badly. – Joshua Wolf Shenk
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Try all forms of writing, don’t pre-type yourself, produce fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, playscripts, essays, profiles, humor, memoir, and biography. - William Noble
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Write daily. But not just for productivity. Write to discover yourself, getting reintroduced to the human being you’re blessed to be — that person indwelled with something of value to offer the world. - Patricia Raybon
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Write now. Don’t wait, because when you do have something important to say, you won’t want your writing to be rusty. Your writing will change and evolve with time.
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Before submitting anything, be sure you’re happy with every word. - Jerry Jenkins
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Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that — but you are the only you. ― Neil Gaiman
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Backstory is the most fundamental, present, and meaningful foundation of the story. Or as Faulkner said, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
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I’d say start publishing your work online and showing it to people even if it’s not ready or perfect.I spent years writing short stories and trying to get my sentences just right. I rarely showed them to anyone and I didn’t get the feedback I needed to improve as a writer. Instead, I stuffed my drafts in a drawer. - Bryan Collins, writing coach
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Take your time. There’s no rush to get published. The more time you spend writing, reading, and learning to be a better writer, the better things will go for you. Don’t try to hurry it along. - Rachelle Gardner, literary agent
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Make each sentence (and every word in that sentence) earn its keep: Is this sentence indulgent? Or does it help the reader? Does it explain, elucidate, or elevate the truth? Get out of your head and into your reader’s. When you’re writing about your own life and your own experiences from your own point of view, you’re nonetheless exposing something real and true and universal.Ann Handley
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Develop your spiritual practices. Helps with stamina to write consistently and from your heart. - Lisa Tener
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Listen and observe more closely. These are seeds being sown into your soul. Soak up everything. You will use all you’re hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, and smelling. - Chris Fabry
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You have to stop writing sometimes to have a life that will fuel your writing. Other avocations can scratch a different creative itch and fuel your writing as well. Fast writing might be sloppy writing, but it ends with a result that can be cleaned up and rewritten as many times as necessary. Go at your own pace, but go! - Angela Hunt
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Stay close to your personal truth as it comes to you when you sit down to write. Follow your bliss. Explore the questions that rise within your soul that will lead you to a more meaningful writing path, one of integrity and passion for the truth that is uniquely yours. When you sit down to write, assume you know nothing. Become curious. Investigate. Inquire. Your mission is not to tell readers who they are and what they should believe; your mission is to ask the important questions and give readers the opportunity to explore those for themselves. - Gloria Kempton
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In the creative process, the heart of the storyteller takes priority over everything else including formulas, word count, social media, and productivity. Let the muse awaken your own hearts before you ask your art to stir the hearts of others. That will infuse your stories with an eternal spark that transcends you and transforms others. - Allen Arnold
“Do...or do not.
There is no try.”
– Yoda
