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[wordstomakethingswrite]

Hello Mr gaiman. How old were you when you started writing stories ? I'm 14 and I try and try but they are all awful. I always give up in the middle and I can never finish what I wanted to write.

I know. I found a pile of papers of mine from my teen years and into my early twenties recently, and there were so many stories begun, so many first pages of novels never written. I’d start them, and then I’d give up because they weren’t as brilliant as Ursula K Le Guin, or Roger Zelazny, or Samuel R Delany, and anyway I wasn’t actually sure what happened next.

I was around 22 when I started finishing things. They weren’t actually very good, and they all sounded like other people, but the finishing was the important bit. I kept going. A dozen stories and a book, and then I sold one (it wasn’t very good, and I had to cut it from 8,000 words to 4,000 to sell it, but I sold it). I probably wrote another half-dozen stories over the next year, and sold three. But now they were starting to sound like me. 

Think of it this way: if you wanted to become a juggler, or a painter, you wouldn’t start jugggling, drop something and give up because you couldn’t juggle broken bottles like Penn Jillette, or start a few paintings then give up because the thing in your head was better than what your hands were getting onto the paper. You carry on. You learn. You drop things. You learn about form and shape and shade and colour and how to draw hands without the fingers looking like noodles. You finish things, learn from what you got right and what you got wrong, and then you do the next thing.

And one day you realise you got good. It takes as long as it takes. So keep writing. And all you need to do right now is try to finish things.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

Anyone who watched S3 of Titans and thought that what happened between DB was #awin is making it up (in their own heads) because she wasn’t even in the S3 recap, making her #irrelevantinS3 🤣 😂 😜

Yeah I keep hearing she wasn't in it which is honestly funny I'm sorry. Like she had so much screentime and they really said "our bad lets pretend that didn't happen" 😭

[wordstomakethingswrite]

If any advice post makes you feel you need to overhaul your whole wip and examine every inch for "problems"...step back and analyze the advice instead. It may not apply to you, it may be taking a small issue and making it big, or it may be entirely wrong.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

When one arrow isn't enough...

[wordstomakethingswrite]

[wordstomakethingswrite]

i think tumblr should put hearts and stars around my mutuals when they appear in my notifs

[wordstomakethingswrite]

It’s sappy but I hope we all get published some day. We deserve it.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

I hope every writer who sees this writes LOADS the next few months. Like freetime opens up, no writers block, the ability to focus, etc etc you're able to write loads & make lots of progress <3

[wordstomakethingswrite]

How to Write Your Book Step 132

So you've stopped writing. You've been taking a sabbatical. Whether it be a day, a week, a month or even a year, or two, or five... well I am here for you! ( cause you've been here for me!) Seriously thankyou for sticking around.

It's a been a while. Your hands are creaky, arthritis is setting in and you haven't written anything towards your book in five years, or is that just me??

It's time. IT IS Time. Time to procrastinate just an hour or 10 mins longer so you can get a strong coffee, and a warm pair of gloves and sit down at your typewriter, laptop, ipad, actual physical book? Whatever it is that makes you bleed words out of your soul and into your book!

And then you put word after word for a while, reread it, rearrange it, add in a few more commas, take them out again, smile, shake your head and continue.

Goodluck! I believe in you! Keep Writing

We Got This!

[wordstomakethingswrite]

[wordstomakethingswrite]

how to stay motivated as a writer

Reread your old writing, especially those scenes you’re most proud of

Write something silly. It doesn’t need to be logical, consistent or included in your story. Write something dumb

Compare your old writing to your new writing. Seeing how much you’ve improved can be very motivating

Explore different storylines, those type of storylines that would never make it into your story, but you’d still like to play around with. Create AUs!

Choose one of your least favorite scenes and rewrite it

Act out your scenes

Read old comments from people praising your work

Create a playlist that reminds you of your wip

Team up with a friend, write AUs for each other's characters

Create playlists for your characters

Draw your ocs/make memes of your ocs

Draw/make memes of your friend's ocs

Don’t push yourself to get back into writing the thing that made you stop writing in the first place, try writing something else!

Write what you wanna write, no matter how cliché it might be. If you want to write it, write it

Take a break, focus on another hobby of yours. Consume other pieces of media, take a walk to clear your head

You don’t have to write in chronological order if it isn’t working for you! Sometimes a scene you aren’t interested in writing can become interesting after you’ve explored other scenes in the story

Read bad reviews of books or TV-shows. You’ll unlock appreciation and motivation for your own writing

Create a new storyline, or a new character! Anything that helps bring something fresh into your story. Could even be a completely new wip!

Not writing every day doesn’t make you a bad writer. Take a break if you feel like you need one

Remind yourself to have fun. Start writing and don’t focus all your attention on following “the rules.” You can get into the nitty-gritty when you’ve familiarized yourself with writing as an art. Or don’t. It’s fiction, you make your own rules

Go to sleep, or take a nap. Sleep deprivation and writing does not go hand in hand

Listen to music that reminds you of your characters/wip

Remember why you started. Know that you deserve to tell the story you want to tell regardless of the skill you possess

[wordstomakethingswrite]

The creature that wants to kill you will not growl.

The function of a growl is as a warning. It is a communication that violence is available as a tool, but is not preferred. Other outcomes, besides your death, are available and should be considered.

But the creature that wants to kill you will not growl.

If your death is the goal, then growling will only serve as a delay and may result in your escape, which runs counter to the goal. There will be no growl, no warning. There will be no snarl or hiss or bluster. The creature that bares its teeth with the intent to kill only does so to bring closer its fangs to your demise.

The creature that growls does not want to kill you, but will if it must.

I advise you to appreciate the warning. You may not receive another.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

literally everything always feels like a performance to me. i’ll be uncontrollably sobbing and will suddenly be like wow i would’ve won an oscar for this

[wordstomakethingswrite]

[wordstomakethingswrite]

On sensitivity readers, weakness, and staying alive.

The other day I was part of a Twitter conversation begun by a fellow-author on the subject of sensitivity readers, in which he said that no serious author would use sensitivity readers, and spoke of work being “sanitized”. The conversation devolved, as it often does on Twitter, but it got me thinking. It must have got someone else thinking too, because a journalist from the Sunday Times got in touch with me the next day, and asked me to share my ideas on the subject. Because I have no control over how my words are used in the Press, or in what context they might appear, here’s more or less what I told her.

I think a lot of people (some of them authors, most of them not) misunderstand the role of a sensitivity reader. That’s probably mostly because they’ve never used one, and are misled by the word “sensitivity”, which, in a world of toxic masculinity, is often mistaken for weakness. To these people, hiring someone to check one’s work for sensitivity purposes implies a surrendering of control, a shift in the balance of power. 

In some ways, I can empathize. Most authors feel a tremendous sense of attachment to their work. Giving it to someone else for comment is often stressful. And yet we do: we hand over our manuscripts to specialists in grammar, spelling or plot construction. We allow them to comment. We take their advice. We call these people editors and copy-editors, and they are a good and necessary part of the process of being an author. Their job is to make an author’s work as accurate and well-polished as possible.

When writing non-fiction, authors sometimes use fact-checkers at the editorial stage, to make sure that no embarrassing factual mistakes make it into print. This, too, is a normal part of the writing process. We owe it to our readers to be as accurate as possible. No-one wants to look as if they don’t know what they’re talking about.

That’s why now, increasingly, when writing about the lives and experiences of others, we sometimes use readers with different specialities. That’s because, however great our imagination, however well-travelled we may be and however many books we have read, there will always be gaps in our knowledge of the way other people live, or feel, or experience the world. Without the input of those with first-hand knowledge, there’s always a danger we will slip up. That’s why crime writers often consult detectives when researching their detective fiction, or someone writing a hospital drama might find it useful to talk to a surgeon, or a nurse, or to someone with the medical condition they are planning to use in their narrative. That’s why someone writing about divorce, or disability, or being adopted, or being trans, or being homeless, or being a sex worker, or being of a different ethnicity, or of a different culture – might find it useful to take the advice of someone with more experience.

There are a number of ways to do this. One of my favourites is The Human Library, which allows subscribers to talk to all kinds of people and ask them questions about their lives  (https://humanlibrary.org/). The other possibility is to hire a sensitivity reader to go through your manuscript and check it. Both can be a valuable resource, and I doubt many authors would believe that their writing is sanitized, or diluted, or diminished by using these resources.

And yet, the concept of the sensitivity readers – which is basically another version of the specialist editor and fact-checker – continues to cause outrage and panic among those who see their use as political correctness gone mad, or unacceptable wokery, or bowdlerization, or censorship. The Press hasn’t helped. Outrage sells copies, and therefore it isn’t in the interest of the national media to point out the truth behind the ire.

Let’s look at the facts.

First, it isn’t obligatory to use a sensitivity reader. It’s a choice. I’ve used several, for many different reasons, just as I’ve always tried to speak to people with experience when writing characters with disabilities, or from different cultures or ethnic groups. I know that my publisher already sends my work to readers of different ages and from different backgrounds, and I always run my writing past my daughter, who often has insights I lack.  

Sensitivity reading is a specialist editorial service. It isn’t a political group, or the woke brigade, or an attempt to overthrow the status quo. It’s simply a writing resource; a means of reaching the widest possible audience by avoiding inaccuracy, clumsiness, or the kind of stereotyping that can alienate or pull the reader out of the story.

Sensitivity readers don’t go around crossing out sections of an author’s work and writing RACIST!!! in the margin. Usually, it’s more on the lines of pointing out details the author might have missed, or failed to consider: avoiding misinformation; adding authentic details that only a representative of a particular group would know.

Authors can always refuse advice. That’s their prerogative. If they do, however, and once their book is published, they receive criticism or ridicule because their book was insufficiently researched, or inauthentic, or was perceived as perpetuating harmful or outdated stereotypes, then they need to face and deal with the consequences. With power comes responsibility. We can’t assume one, and ignore the other,

Being more aware of the experiences of others doesn’t mean we have to stop writing problematic characters. Sensitivity reading isn’t about policing bad behaviour in books. It’s perfectly possible to write a thoroughly unpleasant character without suggesting that you’re condoning their behaviour. Sensitivity is about being more authentic, not less.

People noticed bigotry and racism in the past, too. Some people feel that books published a hundred years ago are somehow more pure, or more free, or more representative of the author’s vision than books published now. You often hear people say things like: “If Dickens were around today, he wouldn’t get published.”

But Dickens is still published. We still get to read Oliver Twist, in spite of its anti-Semitism. And those who believe that Dickens’ anti-Semitism was accepted as normal by his contemporaries probably don’t know that not only was he criticized by his peers for his depiction of Fagin, he actually went back and changed the text, removing over 200 references, after receiving criticism by a Jewish reader. And no, it wasn’t “normal” to be anti-Semitic in those days: Wilkie Collins, whose work was as popular as Dickens’ own, managed to write a range of Jewish characters without relying on harmful and inaccurate stereotypes. 

But it isn’t automatic that a book will survive its author. Books all have shelf lives, just as we do, and Dickens’ work has survived in spite of his anti-Semitism, not because of it. The work of many others has not. Books are for readers, and if an author loses touch with their readers - either by clinging to outdated tropes, or using outdated vocabulary, or having an outdated style – then their books will cease to be published, and they will be forgotten. It happens all the time. What one generation loves and admires may be rejected by the next. And the language is always changing. Nowadays, it’s hard to read some books that were popular 100 years ago. Styles have changed, sometimes too much for the reader to tolerate.

Recently, someone on tumblr asked about my use of the word “gypsy” in Chocolat, and whether I meant to have it changed in later editions. (River-gypsies is the term I use in connection with Roux and the river people, who are portrayed in a positive light, although they are often victims of prejudice.) It was an interesting question, and I gave it a lot of thought. When I wrote the book 24 years ago, the word “gypsy” was widely used by the travelling community, and as far as I knew, wasn’t considered offensive. Nowadays, there’s a tendency to regard it as a slur. That’s why I stopped using it in my later Chocolat books. No-one told me to. It was my choice. I don’t feel as if I’ve lost any of my artistic integrity by taking into account the fact that a word has a different resonance now. On the other hand, I don’t feel that at this stage I need to go back and edit the book I wrote. That’s because Chocolat is a moment in time. It uses the language of the moment. Let it stand for as long as it can. 

But I don’t have to stay in one place. I can move on. I can change. Change is how we show the world that we are still alive. That we are still able to feel, and to  learn, and to be aware of others. That’s what “sensitive” means, after all. And it is nothing like weakness. Living, changing, learning – that’s hard. Playing dead is easy.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

 If you like your story, then that’s a good enough reason to write it. If you like the plot twist, the character, the trope, then that’s more than enough of a reason to write it. It’s your story, your own little world, and what matters most is that it’s a story you love.

[wordstomakethingswrite]

Getting Started

If you’re like me at all, then one of the hardest parts of writing is… actually writing. Getting started is hard. There’s so much to say and do all at once and you can only put one word after the other.

So I thought I’d write out a short guide on getting started and getting past that block.

1. Let go of insecurity and perfectionism.

I’m a perfectionist, and I’m sure a lot of you are too. I’m well aware that this step is easier said than done, but it’s so important. To break through the beginner’s block, we have to let go of our perfectionist ideals. We all want to write the perfect story, and we want to do our characters and audiences justice. That’s what editing is for!

No one has to see your first draft but you. There’s no need to be embarrassed or upset by mistakes, especially if you are the only witness. So do your best to let go of the insecurity and perfectionism that’s holding you back. You can stretch your perfectionist muscles during another draft.

2. Start with an outline or guide.

I know there’s a big debate in the writing community about pantsing vs planning, but planning has its uses! If you’re not sure where to start, an outline is a good way to organize your thoughts. If you have a dozen scenes and lines and ideas running through your head, write down a line or two to describe them and use the click and drag function on Word or google docs to organize where each scene goes. Once you have an order you like, you may find a starting point that feels more natural.

3. Just write.

I hate this bit of advice, but it’s important to remember: your story is not set in stone. If you write a scene and you don’t like it or don’t think it works, you can always throw it in the deleted scenes document. So don’t be afraid to just go ham and write whatever comes to mind. Eventually, you will find a direction.

4. Remember that no writing is ever wasted.

If you don’t keep something, that’s okay! No writing is ever wasted. Every minute you spend writing is a minute learning and honing your craft. Even if that scene or line doesn’t make it to the final cut, that doesn’t mean it was a waste of words! It made you better, even if the reader never sees that.

I hope this helps someone out there to get past that block and start their story. Remember the world will be better for it!

-Indy