The beautiful part of writing is ….

  

Advertisement

You are a writer

Editing

You might not always write well

Writing just do it

The difference between an amateur and a professional

Write Drunk , Edit sober

No wonder writing is so much fun and editing isn’t.

Freedom of the Press

Freedom of the press, yeah right!!! What I am finding more and more is that there is no such thing as freedom of the press. That is just a glorified saying that people use to convey the message that what is published is the absolute truth, uncensored, unbiased in any way. What a joke!

I am not a journalist, but I write for two local papers, and I am here to tell you that there is absolutely no such thing as freedom of the press.

Everyone and everything has an agenda and we are all censored accordingly to some degree. It’s all about not rocking the boat or upsetting the wrong people. As a writer I find this very difficult to come to terms with. At least when writing fiction there are no external influences that I need to be mindful of. The world I create is mine alone, it exists only in my imagination, and I am free to envision it any way I like. This unfortunately is not so in real life.

Pick your battles. Sometimes it’s better to lose the argument in order to win the war. You name it I’ve heard it all. The papers I write for are not political in any way, and yet politics are rife.

I am sure you are all aware of this, as am I, but it really does get my goat. We should be able to write without censorship and leave it up to the reader to form his or her own opinion once they have all the facts.

Image is courtesy of Google images.

Editing! Why is it such a gruelling task?

I have spent most of today trying to edit my novel.

Boy this is such a gruesome task. For some reason I just can’t seem to disconnect from the story and just focus on the editing.

Even when I try breaking it up into chunks and concentrate on say one chapter, or one page or even one sentence, I just can’t bring myself to alter any of the words.

I find myself reshuffling sentences, or adding full stops, commas, capital letters. But changing the words, I just can’t. These are my words.My story. In my mind and in my imagination, this is how it has all played out.

To change the words would be like trying to change the story. Yet I know it must be done. I will seriously need to enlist the help of a professional editor, I can’t see any other way around this.

Would appreciate any advice or thoughts or tips on what others writers do. How do you tackle the daunting task of editing? Surely I can’t be the only one that struggles with this? And if I am, what am I doing wrong?

Writers block

As Christmas grows closer my days are getting busier and busier. Lately making time for my writing is a challenge. This weekend I had a Christmas Party, a concert and Christmas shopping and in amongst all that was the washing, the normal household chores, and helping my daughter write her school captain speech (which I guess technically is writing right?).

Whilst NaNoWriMo is officially over, my novel is not yet finished. I have reached a standstill. I have come to a point in my story that does not work, I know this, but I’m struggling to find a way to work around this, so for the time being my novel is on hold, possibly until I take some leave in January, when hopefully I will be able to take some time to really think this through.

It seems that a lot of writers experience writers block at some stage, and if you were to google writers block you will find countless tips about how to overcome this frustrating blockage.

There are tips such as changing the area that you do your writing, or making a schedule to write and making sure you stick to it. There was even an suggestion of skipping over a chapter that you may be struggling with. But if you do this how will you be able to tie the story together? I suppose what works for one person will not necessarily work for another.

My favourite suggestion and one I seem to revert to quite often is creating a subplot, by having something unexpected happen in my story, I find can often create excitement and add a new twist.

For the moment though I’m just taking a break from my story and reevaluating, one never knows when inspiration may strike, when it does I plan on being ready.