I. THE DILIGENT:
A. Not the greedy. Not the dreamy.
Only those who, day in/day out, write -- even if only a paragraph. They write. They are as constant as starlight.
B. Write because your imagination burns your finger-tips until you put the images, the dialogue,
the stories murmuring in the dark of your heart.
C. Write because it feels too good not to. Write for zest and exploration and color and detail.
Write because that is who you are.
II. THE IMAGINATIVE:
A. You know why so many writers have such great biographies?
Because the best ones never know when to leave well enough alone. They pull up their socks
and yank on their shit-kickers and go out there to face life.
B. They pay their dues and take their chances.
They shoot the rapids.
They wrestle the angel. They throw themselves on the
back of the tiger to see where it takes them.
C. And when they sit down to write, they approach it the same way,
with recklessness and bravado and sheer lust for life.
D. That’s how they have the stamina and endurance to drag a whole galaxy of readers along with them.
III. THE SENSITIVE:
A. The Walking Dead.
Those are the majority of the people you pass during your day.
B. Mind your surroundings.
Those that actually use all 5 senses each moment
of each day have the background of impressions
necessary to evoke the feeling of reality in the scenes they write.
IV. THE WRY SURVIVOR:
A. There is pain in the life of every writer:
the pain of rejection, of isolating yourself from
others to put the words down,
and the pain of growing into a better author.
B. Those who survive that pain are those who find the black, gallows humor of the struggle.
C. The publishing industry is nobody’s mommy.
It’s a business, that’s all. And the only way you’re ever going
to succeed as a writer is
by learning to laugh at yourself.
D. No one has the right to moan about something that everyone goes through.
Find the humor in it
and help another hurting soul along the way.
V. THE PATIENT:
A. Learn to be patient or you will become one.
B. Life is long and a career in the arts takes the whole of it and even the greats never lived long enough to learn it all.
C. Hemingway said it:
We will never become masters of writing. We will only become better apprentices.
D. It came to you—this extraordinary craft—as a free and unfettered gift,
and you got to own it for just a precious short while.
Savor it each day, for tomorrow is promised
to no one.
VI. THE BLESSED:
A. Luck and timing are the twin wings that will lift you up to that window of opportunity.
B. It is what it is. Prepare for that moment by ever-stretching your abilities.
C. That window may not open when you want, but it will open if you are but patient and
persistent.
D. You are all you have.
There are no stunt doubles in writing.
Make the most of all that you are.
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