Writing & Publishing Tips
For many years, my day job was teaching and mentoring other writers and still, I am regularly asked for help or suggestions about how to write and publish well.
Many writers who have barely put pen to page ask about getting an agent or how to find a publisher. They don’t want to hear that they’ve got things the wrong way round, that they’re trying to whip the cart down a narrowing road while the horse is escaping over the hedge. That another, outer, opinion - agent or publisher, mentor or teacher, reader or critic - does not A Writer make.
That you’ve got to love the act of writing itself. To revere it, actually. And you’ve got to create space – the physical and mental space — for it in your life, so that you turn up at the page, day after day.
You’ve got to do the work, laying down sentences and paragraphs, like an athlete lays down miles. Putting words through your fingers, like a musician drumming scales. Going on your knees to the mystery of inspiration, like a priest or a druid surrendering to god.
You’ve got to have daily practices that cocoon and strengthen your writing (inner) self, keep it safe from the buffeting of daily (outer) distractions – including publication.
As you write, you will make vows to yourself - “I’m going to write every day”; “I’m going to write 5000 words a week until I finished the first draft”, vows that you will inevitably break. You will read back your own work and you will hate it. You will work harder than you have ever worked at anything else and fall short. You will feel resentful that nobody cares.
But sooner or later, you’ll come back round again to realising that there is nothing else, just you and the act of writing.
You will learn to forgive yourself for broken vows, for work that never attains your vision. You will understand that nobody out there has asked you to do this. That the call came from inside and that’s the bond you must strengthen.
Once you’re there, then you are ready for some of the practical advice below.
10-things-not-to-say-to-an-agent-or-editor
getting-published (Ireland & UK)
Lots more Writing & Publishing Tips on the Orna Ross Blog: Writing Tips