Mm ‘kay, I didn’t appear in the Sunday linky link, so I’m not going to bother again. And I’m going to close the month with a few words of wisdom, writers on writing, whatever you want to call them. Have a great weekend!

You’re a writer.

Your most valuable asset is, ideally, your writing.

If it’s not, that’s a problem. A problem with you, to be clear, and not a problem with the rest of the world. It rests squarely upon your shoulders.

If your best way to get attention for yourself is to throw shit instead of write a damn good book, you are a troll, not a professional writer.

Your best advertising for yourself as a writer is to write the best book you can write.

Your best advertising for the last book you wrote is the next book.

Your best boost to your career is to be the best version of yourself. Online, in-person, all-around — summon the ideal version of yourself and present that face to the world, to your potential audience. That is how you earn your audience. You don’t build them. Your audience isn’t a fucking chair. They are a group of people who you can, in part, earn as readers and as fans. (I say in part because you can never please everybody, nor should you try.)

– Chuck Wendig

Pick any of the seven reasons above – finishing a book, being creative, achieving a flow state, growth through learning, celebrating failure, finding your tribe or bravely showing your vulnerable side – and use it to pull yourself out of your negative state. Find your smile again.

Use this newfound positive state to problem solve.

Look back: find possible reasons why the book has not sold and come up with ways to improve its sales. Or use being happier to look forward: tap into that creativity and productivity from before and write the next book.

Instead of being a sad, rejected loser you are now a courageous and creative author. Yes, it is simply a variation in language, but you are a writer so you know just how powerful words can be.

– Julie Schooler

But how about YOU? What are the things that you have achieved and accomplished? Even if you haven’t published the new project you were hoping to get done, did you at least get started on it? Have you at least made progress on it? That counts, and it puts you THAT MUCH closer to the achievement. And it’s okay to pause and celebrate that.

Too often, we also compare ourselves to others, and often to only those who are more successful than we are, failing to recognize that there are likely more authors “in our shoes” than the giants being celebrated by the larger media. The fact is that there’ll ALWAYS be someone doing better than you. The thing to measure, instead of comparing your own success, your own sales, to someone else’s, is to compare your own achievements today against your achievements in the past.

– Mark Lefebvre (KWL Newsletter)

Every single finished book is a struggle and a triumph and is merely abandoned (the knowledge that it could be better haunts every writer, every time).

But, and here is the good news; if there is no shining ‘after’ to counteract the wasteland of ‘before’, that means all there is is the writing. The daily work. The being a writer. The thinking up stories. The day dreaming. The delicious research. The learning.
That is all there is for any of us and you are invited to join in.So, take a piece of paper. If you prefer your invitation to come from me, consider it extended (with my warm wishes and a free hug if we ever meet in person!).But you can put whatever you like on your paper:

I am an author

I am creative

I am a writer

I write

Whatever resonates with you. Now put that paper somewhere you won’t lose it, but will see it regularly. In your wallet or on your desk or bedside table.

– Sarah Painter

Look. Cats belong in boxes. Stories don’t. Yes, it can be helpful for marketing, and yes, readers have certain expectations in certain genres, but it isn’t one hundred percent necessary. It isn’t a precursor to getting published, or to success. When I was writing Girl, I had to learn to let it go. When someone asked me what I was writing, I started answering, “I don’t know.” It was honest. I wrote the book I wanted to write: it’s historical, and contemporary. It’s both science fiction and fantasy. It has time-travel, but only one jump…so is it reallllllly a time travel book? Does that matter? Not really. I wrote the story I wanted to tell, and it blends genres until I can’t see distinct colors anymore. I’m really glad I didn’t force my book into a box. I love cats, but my book is not a cat.

– Katherine Locke

And since not much is going on – again – here are a few writers on writing, words of wisdom and whatnot. Have a wonderful weekend

***

When you’re having a bad writing day, a hard writing day, remember that.

And remember too that when you sit down a week from now, or a month, or a year, the days the writing was hard and the days the writing was easy will be indistinguishable from one another. In fact, sometimes the easy days produce worse work than the difficult days. You never know. So don’t let it stop you. Put the bucket over your head and run at the wall anyway.

And remember that all of this is just a draft, that it can all be fixed and changed, that what doesn’t work can be made to work. It can always be made to work with enough practice, with enough blood.

You’re having a hard day of writing, write anyway.

Do it because it’s hard.

Forgive yourself because it’s hard.

Don’t let one bad day be the gravestone for the rest of the days.

– Chuck Wendig

Thanks to Quiet by Susan Cain, many writers are happily claiming their introversion. I’m an introvert, which means I get my energy from being alone. I hate small talk and large groups. I’d rather think than speak, and write rather than talk. I rarely answer the phone. I’m INFJ on the Myers-Briggs scale, and many authors fit a similar model. This also means that conferences and events are tiring, so I can’t do too many of them a year. If you’re like me, then we’re super lucky these days, because online marketing suits introverts. We can attract an audience online and connect with readers, while still spending time alone.
– Joanna Penn

There’s nothing like studying the bestseller lists of bygone years for teaching an author humility. You’ve heard of the ones that got filmed, normally. Mostly you realise that today’s bestsellers are tomorrow’s forgotten things.

(…)

I’m convinced if I keep going one day I will write something decent. On very bad days I will observe that I must have written good things in the past, which means that I’ve lost it. But normally I just assume that I don’t have it. The gulf between the thing I set out to make in my head and the sad, lumpy thing that emerges into reality is huge and distant and I just wish that I could get them closer.

– Neil Gaiman

The proper response to a rejection is to send the story out to a different publisher—not to rewrite the tale. So don’t fiddle with your language. There are times when it might be wise to make a “substantial” revision, one where you change the very bones of a story. For example, you might decide to write a new opening scene, or extend a climax, or something like that. In that case, it’s like re-setting the bones of the story, not applying new lipstick to the face of it. You’re fixing the underlying structure.

– David Farland

That’s the kind of writer you want to be. You want to be the writer whose work they buy because they love your work, rather than the writer who distracts them for one weekend and whom they never read again.

(…)

We all want our latest releases to sell millions of copies this year. Most of us—99.9% of us—won’t achieve that. But we will have published a book or two or three, and we are working in our chosen field.

We’re the day-to-day folk who provide the best entertainment possible in a non-special-event kinda way. And that’s what most readers want.

Remember that the next time you see a lot of hype.

And realize that the hype isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.

– Kris Rusch

Haven’t been doing much, so I’m posting the Words of Wisdom, Writers on Writing, whatever you want  to call them, and happy new writing year! 🙂

Keep your ear to the ground. You can’t just hide out in your writing cave. Remember, the market changes. You need to be able to alter course if necessary, so stay informed of what’s happening in the industry, what other authors are doing, what the book trends are, etc. That doesn’t mean you jump on everything that comes your way, but you need to be aware of it. Don’t be the last one to catch the train.

Pay it forward!!! Support your fellow authors. Buy their books. Review their books. Share their releases and successes with your followers. I can’t tell you how many opportunities have come my way because of friendships with other authors. It takes a village to build a successful writing career, and your fellow authors are your village.

– Cara Bristol

I love to write. A lot of you love to write, I bet. But, as with any love, there are days you hate it. Some days, writing feels like endless toil. There are days when writing acts distant for no apparent reason, because writing can be a passive-aggressive jerk. Writing is the sort of lover who breaks up with you, then slinks in naked while you’re taking a shower, like nothing happened. You’ll stay up all night with writing and regret it when you have to go to work in the morning. There’ll even be times when you’re trying to focus on something else, but writing won’t stop talking to you no matter how politely you ask.

Simply put, writing is an asshole. Writing steals your money and spends it on stupid things, like another gimmicky book on how to write better, and then it acts like it bought that book for both of you. Writing will take you to heaven and back all day long, but the next morning it’ll be gone without even leaving a note.
Because writing is love, and love is hell.

– Robyn Bennis

Writing is something you do alone. It’s a profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don’t want to make eye contact while doing it.

– John Green

If you are the kind of writer who can write the same thing over and over again and not get bored, then you might be able to develop the kind of brand loyalty that Child is talking about.

I can’t. I don’t want to repeat myself. So even though I know what he did is very smart, it’s not something I can or will replicate. I have to plan my own brand work around that decision.

That said, I am much more interested in building brand loyalty than I am in building customer loyalty. I didn’t have the words for this until I started this series.

I don’t want people to buy my books because they’re discounted or because I keep offering better and better variations of a good deal. I want people to buy my books because they enjoy my books.

– Kris Rusch

Impostor Syndrome is real. Flip the script on it. Don’t let it have power over you. Admit you’re an impostor. Then admit that we’re all impostors — none of us belong here because art and story are forbidden, interstitial places. This thing we do is Buccaneer’s Den, it’s Mos Eisley, it’s a secret moon colony. Not a one of us “belongs” here. We all booked illegal passage through blackest night and sharky waters to get here. We’re not one ship, we’re countless life-boats strung together — a glorious flotilla of freaks.

This is who we are. It’s what we do. And what we do is sometimes hard. It’s hard for me. It’s hard for you. It’s hard for Stephen King. It’s hard for J.K. Rowling. King probably thinks that Rowling does it effortlessly, and Rowling probably thinks King sails through every draft, and the truth is, it’s hard for them, for you, for me, for every penmonkey that ever done monkeyed with a pen.

When a story reads effortlessly, it was not written effortlessly. In fact, the more effortlessly it reads, the more effort probably went into making it read effortlessly.

It took work.

– Chuck Wendig

Let’s start the new year well! Words of wisdom and writers on writing to take home. Here’s to 2015 filled with more wise quotes!

How do people find your work? By having choices. Some people might like the cover on your very first novel, and buy it for that reason. Some people don’t find you until your fifteenth novel. Some people like your short stories or, as some of you have pointed out on a recent blog of mine, some of people find your fiction through your nonfiction.

Write. Write a lot. Then write more.

Don’t even bother to try to be “discovered” until you have a body of work. Not one novel. Not even two novels. Maybe not three or four or five. Worry about being discovered after you’ve published a good handful of novels or short stories or plays or nonfiction books. Enough to fill a computer screen when someone is scrolling, looking for something to read.

I am not telling you to wait to publish.

Got that?

I think you should publish the very first thing you finish. If you want to be traditionally published, send that very first thing to editors who might buy it. If you want to be a hybrid writer or an indie writer, then publish that thing after it’s gone through a first reader and a copy editor. Get it out into the world.

You might not sell a single copy.

You might sell hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands.

The only way to know is to make the work available.

But first, you have to do the work.

That work is writing.

Write what you love. Tell the best story you can. Then, once you’ve finished that story, start a new story. Make it even better than the first.

– Kris Rusch

Self-publishing is not a gold rush.

Success at writing requires, in addition to long hours and hard work, a lot of luck.

Check out my advice to aspiring writers, there on the left hand side of the front page. Check every interview I’ve ever given and any blog post where I mention what authors should expect. I’ve beaten this drum louder and longer than any other drum, including my love of self-publishing. I say it all the time. You have to write because you love it. You can’t expect to make a living at this. Luck is involved. Most won’t make it.

– Hugh Howey

This revolution isn’t about Konrath making a million dollars a year. 

This revolution is about writers, for the first time ever, having power.

We have a choice. And it’s our duty to make ALL writers aware of this choice.

Visit www.authorearnings.com. Fill out the survey and petition. Link to it. Tweet it. Discuss it on Facebook. Speak out and tell your peers what your experiences are. Even if you make $10 a year, you’re not a failure. Failure is giving up. Failure is handing your fate over to someone else. Failure is not arming yourself with information.

Ebooks are forever. Understand what copyright is. Understand that money flows toward the writer. Understand that the more control you have, the less likely you are to be at the mercy of others.

The first step, in any revolution, is making the exploited aware of how they’re being exploited. We have a growing body of evidence that shows self-publishing is good, and legacy publishing is exploitative.

We need to share that evidence if we want change to happen.

Tell your stories. Be proud of your accomplishments. Stop succeeding in silence.

– Joe Konrath

If you want to make pictures or write stories, no one can stop you.

You do not need to be a pro to be happy. The pursuit of the pro career for which some people simply are not suited has led many people to great unhappiness. I was not suited for a career in music, despite 12 long years of banging away at it.

Know thyself.

It isn’t a question of whether or not this is something you want to do: the question is, can you make a living at it?

You don’t have to make a living at art to enjoy making art. Give yourself the freedom to make art without the burden of art making you.

– Colleen Doran

In this modern world of publishing, there is no one way, no right way, no perfect path.

My suggestion is to keep your eyes open on the publishing side, look around, try one way or another, and be willing to change if something sounds right.

Do a writing plan and a business plan as to where you want to be in five years and figure out if the plan is realistic for your writing.

Write to passion.

And never listen to anyone who tells you there is only one right way.

There is only your way.

Experiment, learn, find it, and have fun.

–Dean Wesley Smith