Category Archives: Writer Motivation

Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy

Writer Motivation, ,

Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy. Your hero may be rich and her lover good lookin’ but your drive to tell their story has driven to the beach to play. These lazy hazy crazy days of summer took hold of your heart and sent your head to another season. Still all that is writerly in you has definitely not been lost. Much that is easy remains among the blades of clover grass and goodies in your picnic basket to keep your author mojo summer hummin’ along.

It’s Easy to Remember Why You Love to Write. I love to write because of my characters. Discovering them is an into-body experience for me. At first I’m inside them falling deeper as I grow to know them better. The further I fall the more besotted I become. Then the process reverses and they begin to reside in me – through my thoughts and heart and into my body. Sounds like love and sex. Maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much. Why do you love to write?

It’s Easy to Be Inspired. The secret is to sense yourself up. Look around. Colors. Shapes. Movement. All exploding everywhere. Listen in. Past your own noisy thoughts and urges to take control. Allow the sounds of life – including dialog snatches – to tumble and flow into you. Breathe deep the scents of the season. From a new peach to storm ozone in the air. Taste the sweet and the spice. Touch it all and let it touch you. Soon you will forget that  it’s Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy.

It’s Easy to Immerse Yourself. Dive deep into the pool/pond/ocean of experience. Any experience. Let go of your personal gravity – whatever holds you down or back. Prepare to be mesmerized. Seek your meditative center beneath and beyond the difficulties and frustrations of the day-to-day. Be taken over and transported like a child clasped by the hand and led through a world that unfurls into a sunny glade where every step is magic.

It’s Easy to Capture It All. Always write down the important things in life. And your savored summertime is very important. Not necessarily as a story or novel just yet unless you can’t stop yourself. Otherwise notes on a card will do – as long as you always carry those cards with you except when swimming. They will save you from the following huge writer mistake. You have an idea so super you can hardly believe such great fortune has befallen  you. So super you know you will never forget it. Then you do.

Warm Weather Discipline may not be Easy but Many other Things are. Especially when you carry yourself along at a lazy lighthearted lope. All you need do is this. Remember why writing is your adoration and adore it. Sense up your sexy self to be inspired. Immerse your soul in depths of magnificent mystery and float away on a current of calm. Note the necessity and joy of capturing it all in a few adoring, mysterious, magnificent words you shall not lose. Because it may be Summertime and the Writing Ain’t Easy – but loving your writer self is.

Alice Orr Says – You Possess Storytelling Magic. Keep on Writing Whatever May Occur. https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

Ask Alice Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask your question in the Comments section at the end of this post.

Alice Orr has published 14 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community she loves. Her hot novel for this hot season – A Year of Summer Shadows – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 2 – is available HERE.

Amazon.com/authors/aliceorr

 Praise for A Year of Summer Shadows: “Alice keeps you wanting to read faster, then when you finish the last page, you want more.” “Orr’s characters come alive on the page.” “A Year of Summer Shadows has moved up to one of my favorite books.”

 All of Alice’s Books are HERE.

http://facebook.com/aliceorrwriter/
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

 

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet?

Writer Motivation, ,

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? I last posted here two months ago. You might say I took a summer vacation. Now autumn approaches and I anticipate the invigoration of bracing evenings and new promise in the air. It’s time to get moving again. Time to check out where to begin.

An animal prepares to burrow in – out of the flow – at autumn time. Not so with humans. We are ready to reenter the flow. To shake off the humid torpor and plunge into the vitality of life. Writers are ready to plunge also. To re-engage our psyches and set loose our imaginations.

In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King offers good advice about that. Sit down every morning and do the work. Two-thousand words minimum. Or thousands more, if you can manage it. He is a taskmaster for sure. His career is evidence of the wisdom of the task.

Keep on writing whatever may occur. I’ve signed my own books with those words for many years. I cherish the phrase and the sentiment. I pass them on with every good wish in my heart, especially to beginners on this path. But what will you keep on writing as a new season begins?

A writer writes – whatever that may entail. Maybe not always a host of novel pages to start with. A writer may scribble ideas on notecards. A writer may fill journal pages when the morning gifts her with inspiration. A writer may stare at the wall and just imagine. It all counts.

For me the way back in led to a peek inside my writer’s closet. A writer’s closet is the place where we store the stories we gave up on. The stories we dropped in their tracks. The stories we abandoned when a shinier new idea came along. We all have a writer’s closet.

What I found in my writer’s closet was a story that hit a snag. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Supposedly. The boulder in this particular writing road was a scene that didn’t work. It didn’t fit with what came before. I could have pressed on. Instead, I walked away.

Autumn inspires us to see old roads with new eyes. The spark of potential rekindles. Maybe not a full blaze at first. Maybe only a flash of light. We see it and feel it all the same. We rediscover a path we can dance again, possibly to an altered tune. I saw. I felt. I am dancing.

What’s in Your Writer’s Closet? Take a peek. Look for a story you might dance to again. Look for a story you already tingle to tackle each morning. A spark of potential recognized anew. You see it. You feel it. Your heart jumps. Your imagination stirs. You begin to dance.

Alice Orr – https://www.aliceorrbooks.com.

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Ask that question in the Comments section following this post. Share your writer’s journey and inspire future posts.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community. Her latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.

A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/

Get Your Writing Out There – Right Now

Writer Motivation, ,

Get Your Writing Out There – Right Now. A colleague was in touch with me recently about a novel she has been working on for some time. The story is finished. It has been edited and polished. It is ready to go. Still, she hesitates to send it into the world.

I Understand this Writer’s Hesitation. There is always more that can be done to any manuscript, more tinkering and tweeking. But the time comes when you must decide – whether you will let your book go or most likely hang onto it forever.

A Substantial Fear Factor Resides in this Decision. I understand that also. Especially after you have worked on a story for a long time. The act of actually submitting it somewhere feels like a finality, as if it could be make or break for your career. But none of this is true.

You are merely taking a first step, seeking a professional response to your work. After that step has been accomplished, you may ask yourself, “Where do I go from here?” Meanwhile, however, your work is off your desk and into the publishing universe, where it needs to be.

We Have All Heard that Rejection is More Likely than Acceptance. This is entirely true, but you must move forward anyway. What is the alternative? You can of course collect story files, one after the other, never allowing yourself  to discover what might or might not happen to them.

This is the safe alternative, but it is also a dead end. Dead means the same thing in the writing world that dead means in any circumstance. Life is over, at least on this side of eternity. Your hours, months, years of work have been consigned to a drawer somewhere, digital or otherwise.

Instead, Let’s Address the Question “Where Do I Go from Here?” Have you researched where it is appropriate to submit this story? Have you identified other successfully published books in your genre, where exactly they were published, and who their editors might be? Get Your Writing Out There – Right Now.

You Need a List of 6 Appropriate publishers for Your Work. You need the name of a specific editor at each house who already works in your genre and has made a success of other authors there. You will go on to identify 6 more houses eventually, and 6 more after that, but this is where you begin.

Prepare Your Most Impressive Submission Package. Include first chapter and synopsis even if the submission guidelines say not to do so. A writing sample and synopsis proof of a full, compelling plot give you a fair chance to showcase your abilities. Blame the rule break on me.

Top Your Package with a Carefully Written Cover Letter. Then, let that baby go. Six submissions at a time. Be sure to mention in your cover letter, with deliberately diplomatic subtlety, that this manuscript package has been submitted to “a very select group of publishers.”

Move on, Immediately, to Your Next Book. Forget about the submissions you just made. Do not sit around waiting for responses. But when the responses do come, keep track of them in a file for that book. Meanwhile, submit to a new editor on your next six-publisher list.

Do What each Responding Editor Requests. If she asks to see something more, send it. If she suggests revisions, incorporate them and resubmit. If she turns you down but adds what she did like about the work, enhance that element further and resubmit. Thank her profusely, and sincerely,  for the inspiration her comments were for you – so inspiring in fact that you felt you must show her the result.

At Last, You may Turn to the Other Stuff. Like marketing to gain name visibility online, via the platforms that work best for you. That part of your career is important, but submitting your work must be your first  priority always. Get Your Writing Out There – Right Now.

Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com

ASK ALICE Your Crucial Questions. What are you most eager to know – in your writing work and in your writer’s life? Email aliceorrbooks@gmail.com. Or add a comment question to this post. Alice will be honored to respond.

Alice has published 16 novels, 3 novellas and a memoir so far. She wrote her nonfiction book No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to Writing a Manuscript that Sells as a gift to the writers’ community. Her latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.A Time of Fear & Loving

Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!”

Look for all of Alice’s books HERE.

https://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter
http://twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks/
http://goodreads.com/aliceorr/
http://pinterest.com/aliceorrwriter/