WRITE THE DA VINCI WAY_INSECURE WRITER SUPPORT

Alex Cavanaugh’sInsecure Writers Support Group

No, not mirror writing ... unless you're left handed.

Why did Leonardo Da Vinci write in backward or mirror image style?

I never believed that Leonardo's writing had anything to do with secrets or mystery writing.

He was such a creative, innovative person, he wrote the way he did because it was easier and possibly less "messy".

Leonardo was left handed.

If you have ever watched a left handed person write you will see that in order to be able to read what they have written,

as they write it, they "curl" their hand around what they have written. This allows them to see what they are writing.

So I believe Leonardo simply devised the Backward Writing because it worked for him.


Truly a practical and ingenious way to write his thoughts quickly and without mess. 

And obviously, he had no problem reading what he had written.

That's it. No big secret and deep dark mystery.

Just a good example of how Leonardo was someone who could "think outside the box". 


As you must think outside the box if you are to write something original.

You see, even if the original novel you write does not sell, you have not sold out the most valuable thing you have ... yourself.

What made this illegitimate son of a peasant girl and a notary become one of the most famous artists, inventors and scientists who ever lived?

His energy was limitless when it came to asking questions and searching for answers, and

he was the master of observation which led to more questions and discoveries.

He had an insatiable desire to learn as much as he could about everything he observed, and he took meticulous notes.

He even described himself as a "disciple of experience" which meant he learned from experiencing, experimenting and observing everything he came in contact with.

So must you be a disciple of experience if you would write "true" fiction even if it is a tale of utter fantasy. 

If the reader believes your protagonist, then she/he will flow seamlessly into the adventure no matter how fantastic ... if the logic of the heart rings true.

THE DA VINCI METHOD OF WRITING AWESOMELY:

1.) Curiosità.

Curiosità is an "insatiably curious approach to life and unrelenting quest for continuous learning". Great minds have one characteristic in common: they continuously ask questions throughout their lives.

Leonardo's endless quest for truth and beauty clearly demonstrates this.

What makes great minds different is the quality of their questions. You can increase your ability to solve problems by increasing your ability to ask good questions.

Like da Vinci, you should cultivate an open mind that allows you to broaden your universe and increase your ability to explore it.

2.) STEPS TO BECOMING A DA VINCI

 KEEP A JOURNAL -


Bring a journal wherever you go and use it often. Write your ideas and thoughts there. Try to write several statements a day that start with "I wonder why/how..."

   KEEP FOCUSED -


Observe according to a theme. Choose a theme and observe things according to the theme for a day.

 For example, let's say you choose "communication". For the entire day, observe every type and instance of communication you come across. You can then record your observations in your journal.

  OPEN THE WINDOW OF YOUR MIND -

Stream of consciousness exercise. Pick a question and write the thoughts and associations that occur to you as they are. Don't edit them. The important thing is to keep writing. This is also referred to as freewriting.

3.) Dimostrazione.

Dimostrazione is "a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and a willingness to learn from mistakes".

Wisdom comes from experience and the principle of Dimostrazione helps you get the most out of your experience. Here are some ways to apply Dimostrazione:

   THREE POINTS FOR YOUR INNER COMPASS -

First, make a strong argument against your belief.

Next, take a distant view of your belief (for example, as if you live in a different culture) and review it.

Finally, find friends who can give you different perspectives.

   ANALYZE YOUR SIREN -



Analyze the advertisements that affect you.

Look at the advertisements in your favorite magazine and analyze the strategy and tactics they use. Find the advertisements that affect you most and find out why.

  FIND YOUR AUNTIE OR ANTI-MODEL -

List the names of some people whose mistakes you want to avoid.

Learn from them so that you won't encounter the same pitfalls.

4.) Sensazione.

Sensazione is "the continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience".

According to da Vinci, we can best practice Dimostrazione through our senses, particularly sight.

That's why one of Leonardo's mottoes is saper vedere (knowing how to see) upon which he built his work in arts and science.

Here are some ways to apply Sensazione:

Write detailed description of an experience. For instance, describe your experience of watching a sunrise in your journal.

Learn how to describe a smell.

Learn to draw.  Even if it is badly.

Listen to different sounds around you.

Learn to listen to different intensity of sounds from the softest (e.g. your breathing) to the loudest (e.g. traffic).

Live in the moment. Practice mindfulness.

5.) Cryptic.


Cryptic is "a willingness to embrace ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty".

An essential characteristic of da Vinci's genius is his ability to handle a sense of mystery. Here are two ways to apply Cryptic:

Befriend ambiguity.

Not knowing something does not make it ambiguous! It is when you DO know something but its meaning is indeterminate.

Ask yourself questions that relate two opposites.

For example, ask yourself how your happiest and saddest moments are related.  You will be surprised at your findings.

Practice the Socratic method.

The goal with the Socratic method is to examine possibilities, and that is done by asking questions, not by giving answers.


Socrates was known (and criticized) for asking questions to which he didn't have answers.


The key to using the Socratic method is to be humble.

Don't assume that you or anyone knows anything for sure. Question every premise.

6.) SO YOU QUESTION ALL OF THE ABOVE -

How will this improve your writing?

Imagine your heroine can't remember when she hasn't been able to ...

A.) Taste colors
B.) Not laugh when exposed to lies.

Harmless right?

No, she begins to have indigestion and hysterical laughter in front of forgeries in the art museum.

She begins to earn a living until ...

the intelligence agencies the world over hunt her for her skill at detecting lies and

the terrorist organizations the world over want her dead.

Then, an old crone said she once traded the heroine those deadly gifts in return for her earliest memory.

Does the heroine want to un-do the trade?

HER BONES ARE IN THE BADLANDS
http://www.amazon.com/HER-BONES-BADLANDS-Roland-Yeomans-ebook/dp/B00FPFOJNO/

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IWSG_THE SILK ROAD of WILLIAM FAULKNER'S GHOST

William Faulkner, ghost, here.

Alex Cavanaugh has established this fine tradition:

Writers supporting one another as do the stones in an arch bridge -
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/

Roland is off bringing rare blood to the ailing, so I am here to stand in his stead:

Why do I title my support article, THE SILK ROAD?

The Silk Road (from German: Seidenstraße) or Silk Route

 is a modern term referring to a historical network of interlinking trade routes

across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia

 with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa.

 Extending 4,000 miles, the Silk Road got its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade along it, which began during the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD).

Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, India, Persia, Europe and Arabia.

Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies,

as well as the bubonic plague (the "Black Death"), also traveled along the Silk Routes.

The path you take in the quest for your novel is the Silk Road for you.  It is both a short path and a long one:

from the head to the heart

to the fingers.

But most writers run afoul of a roadblock from the head to the heart. 

Or if they traverse that perilous plain, they will find only staleness at the end of their fingers.

My advice for that?

Get it down.

Take chances.

It may be bad, but it is the only way you can do anything good. 


The Silk Road to your novel will demand bravery of you.

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.  

It will lead you places you never expected to go, bringing you wisdom or the death of your dreams,

depending on the choices you make, the people with whom you converse.

We writers are a lonely group as the ghost of Samuel Clemens pointed out yesterday. 

Dreams have only one owner at a time.

That's why dreamers are lonely.

We are drawn to those who understand the fire in our souls ... even though sometimes we deny that attraction.

In the '20's, two cities called out to yearning writers:
Paris and New Orleans.

I told myself I was going to New Orleans to get a job on a ship going to Europe. 

I was lying to myself.  Why, we lie so much to ourselves, we could do it for a living.

I wanted to be with people with the same problems and interests as my own,

who would not laugh as I told of what I was trying to accomplish with my prose as so many of the Philistines did back then.

To succeed on the original Silk Road, you had to learn the languages of the nations along that route.

Your own Silk Road will demand you learn the languages of those of whom you write.

It helps if you like people, for you will listen beneath their words

to the aches and longings that they cannot or dare not bring into the light of conversation.

I spent a lot of time with my uncle. 

And every 4 years, he would have to barn-storm to get re-elected as judge. 

I did not nor do I care about politics.  But I cared about the lined faces I saw in my uncle's audiences.

Theirs were not regional problems. 

A man from there had the same struggles

as do we all:

the struggle against his own heart, against the hearts of his fellows

And the struggle to stay the course of the truths by which we must all live.

Truth.


That is a much mocked word in this relative world of today.

"Oh," people say, "what makes something a truth for you does not work for me."

Really? 

Courage, honor, compassion, pity.  Not for you?

We do not practice those to be good

but practicing them has allowed us not to pass away as with the Mastodon despite our fragility. 

One is honest, not to be good, but that is how we get along with one another, to know where we stand in regards to those around us. 

Without compassion, the weak would not endure to grow strong enough to stand on their own.

Love like truth is beyond reason.

You don’t love because, you love despite;

not for the virtues, but despite the faults.

 

To get anywhere along your Silk Road of writing you need a compass.  Here is the one I used:

Unless your characters are in trouble,

it is your novel that is in trouble.

And not just trouble alone.  The struggle to endure must rivet the reader. Why is a reader riveted?

Because he has grown to care about the protagonist due to some resonance that character strikes within the heart of the reader.

Not that the protagonist must be a saint, for who relates to perfection? 

Indeed, maybe the hero has no morality at all, only an integrity to stay true to what he believes to be facts of human behavior. 

But your hero will do what a man or woman will naturally do,

not what a man should do, but what he will do ... maybe what he can't help but do.

Labor to bring your page to life:

The aim of every writer is to arrest motion, which is life, by the artificial means of prose 

and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. 

As a writer, always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors.

Try to be better than yourself.

I do not expect you to remember what I say here, only to perhaps be hit like a tuning fork by something that spoke directly to you.   

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects,

longer than knowing even wonders. 

If you take nothing else from this lesson of mine, take this:

The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews,

the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews.  

HAS IT ALL CAUGHT UP WITH YOU? INSECURE WRITERS SUPPORT

 HAS IT ALL CAUGHT UP WITH YOU?

You're in good company:

Mark Twain

Mark Twain's brilliant authorship of American classics such as Huckleberry Finn might have had its roots in his tendency to depression. But this famous depressed writer also lived with a lot of family drama that could have contributed to his stressand depression.

Depression's role with creative writing will also be a function of the individual writers, their personal history, their circumstances, and the nature of their depressions.

Stephen King

Stephen King, a modern master of suspense and terror, has quite a body of work to his name. Yet his fame and talent didn't forestall the devastating effects of the drugs and alcohol he allegedly had been using to cope with ongoing unhappiness.

Substance abuse and alcohol use often play roles as people struggling with depression attempt to self-medicate. During those years, this famous depressed writer also produced some of his best-known works, such as The Shining, Pet Sematary, and Carrie.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were known for their glamorous and tumultuous lifestyle, full of wild parties, travel, and larger-than-life characters.

The Great Gatsby remains his best-known work, but other novels such as The Beautiful and the Damned detail a lot of the same ground. Their glittering life had a dark side, punctuated by alcoholism and depression for both of them, and their legacy includes being famous depressed writers.

HOW DO YOU KEEP ON WRITING DESPITE FEAR, DOUBT, & SELF-CRITICISM?

1.) ASK YOURSELF WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF YOU'RE WEREN'T AFRAID OR DOUBTFUL.

The mere act of doing usually makes the fear recede in just a few minutes.” Pretend, just for a moment, that rejection or failure isn’t the end of life as you know it.

2.) STOP INDULGING YOUR FEARS, DISCOURAGEMENTS, REJECTIONS, & DASHED DREAMS.

Much as we’re driven to write, we feel we must be in the mood – as if the clouds should part, the sun should shine and every possible interruption should be silenced.

None of that matters. Write anyway. Don’t think about how you feel or if it’s a perfect time to write or that you have a thousand other things to do. Write anyway. You have nothing to share and nothing to sell if there are no words on the page.

3.) REMEMBER THAT REJECTION ISN'T NECESSARILY ABOUT YOUR WRITING. 

You have to be totally dedicated to your writing. Forget about rejections – they’re a mandatory part of any career.

A writer writes.

If you feel you’ll keep writing even if you never get published, then you’re a real writer.

The markets want they want.  Tastes will change.  You will grow as a writer if you do not give up.

4.) SEE PAST YOUR EXCUSES TO YOUR REAL FEARS

Writers need to look at their fears directly. “Recognize them for what they are, and be honest with yourself about why you’re not moving forward with your writing goals.

This can be difficult because we give excuses rather than facing our fears.

5.) SET SMALL GOALS

Long-term goals are great for inspiration, but keep a list of small, attainable goals, too, and allow yourself to feel proud when you achieve them.

Reward yourself for finishing a chapter or short story.

Recognize that sending a few query letters to agents takes time, thought, and effort, and don’t discount the success.

THE SCRATCH OF THE CLAW_INSECURE WRITERS' SUPPORT

*

How do you write?

Do you write as if your novel were a pressurized airplane cabin?

Are your characters insulated from the truth of their environment?

Is your locale as flat as a cardboard movie backdrop?

Are there smells to your surroundings? Does the soft breeze make an airy stew of their aromas?

Or do you drag your poor reader down sterile, silent streets?

What are the prevailing winds of mindset, manners, and economic demands of your setting?

Does your main character sail against them? Or does he/she flounder in their wake?

Or does he, puppet-like, go through lifeless motions, tugged by your whims and not by motivations relate-able to your readers?

And what about you as a writer?

Do you persist? Or do you stall out when the words become lost in the mist.

Persistence. It is what separates those just playing from those dedicated to the dream.

When the writing is sluggish that is when it is most important to bull through to the end. Writing is like life in that.

Winners don't stop when they meet resistance. Weight resistance builds muscle. Blank-out resistance builds fine prose.

Persistence is the heart. The story is the soul.

For luck, Ernest Hemingway used to carry a rabbit's foot in his right pocket. The fur had long since been worn off. The bones and sinews were polished by wear.

The claws scratched in the lining of his pocket,

and by that sting he knew his luck was still there.

Why was that?

When you feel the scratch of life against you, you know that your luck as a writer is still at your back. How is that?

The sting of life makes you aware :

of your own humanity,

of others' failings and strengths,

of the precious fragility of life.

And that awareness gives your pen the gift of perception, depth, and heart.

What did Ernest put in his journal?

"Travel and writing broaden your ass, if not your mind, so I try to write standing up."
***

{Col. Charles T. Lanham and Ernest Hemingway in Germany 1944.

This image is a work of a U.S. Army soldier or employee, taken or made during the course of the person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.}

***

INSECURE WRITER SUPPORT_CASTING DREAMS INTO THE DARKNESS

Casting dreams into the darkness.

That's what you do when you send out queries to agents or to publishers. Writing a short note in a bottle and tossing it out onto the horizon-to-horizon waves.

Will it succeed it getting you off the deserted island of unpublished status?

The million dollar question.

Like any intelligent person, I read what each individual agent writes she would prefer --

Only to read in another article how she just had to sign this debut author.

One who broke all the query rules and wrote such a refreshingly different query, breaking away from the crowd who slavishly submitted the same old, same old.

{in other words : followed her submission guidelines.}

Sometimes I can feel a nosebleed coming on.

I have been following the conventional wisdom lately and feeling a lot like Snoopy riddled by the Red Baron. Once I emailed a query early in the morning to get the rejection in the late afternoon of the same day.

All right. Obviously, it was course correction time. I looked back at the four queries that got 4 agents to ask to see more.

They had what I call the 4 C's :

interesting Character,

primal Crisis,

enough of the plot to make the agent Curious,

and most important, they were all Concise ...

ie. short as to be kind to a weary agent's eyes and frayed patience.
I decided to go with what had won me the attention of four agents and write a query that used the 4 C's, trying to improve upon the theme. And this is what I wrote and promptly sent off to another agent {who did not reject me the same day or the day after.}

Dear Ms. _________ :

Hurricane Katrina has mortally wounded New Orleans. There is no help in sight. Federal agencies are grid-locked. State officials are befuddled and ineffectual. The police are under-staffed with little amunition and no sure means of communication.

And along every dark, flooded street ... the dead have started to rise.

Samuel McCord, legendary French Quarter jazz club owner, decides he has lost enough :

his family, his wife, and his humanity.

He will not lose his adopted city -- not to inept, corrupt politicians, not to the rising dead in the shadows, nor to a life-long enemy whose power is causing the dead to return and the creatures of the night to close in around a helpless New Orleans.

And so begins the urban fantasy, FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE. I'm including the first page of my novel to give you a feel for my writing voice :

It rained lies and death today.

My mind felt broken. I stood knee-deep in water outside my French Quarter jazz club, Meilori’s. My soul stretched tight across my chest.

Everything I saw and heard in the shadows spoke to me ... in threats. The sudden, short explosion of an unseen gun. A quick, sharp scream in the distance. And the blue spurt of a lighted match at the far end of the street. My city bled slowly in the ripples of the flooded streets.

I leaned back against the door to my club as if for reassurance that something solid still remained to me. That it had survived Katrina was a mixed blessing. It was all that was left to me of my wife. Staying here was both penance and purgatory.

Meilori’s was the kind of place in which almost anything was likely to happen and in which almost everything had. Inside, fifty-one survivors of Katrina were huddled in shivering, too quiet clusters. Words have no meaning when a city dies. Nothing much does.

Somewhere distant in the hot, red darkness a shot rang out. Another called out to it like a wolf. But it came from a different direction. I smiled bitter. The predators were crawling out of their boarded shelters. They knew the restraint of law had died this day. Soon they would come for me.

You see, I had enemies in the night. And not all of them were human.
********************************************
To get a better idea of my writing voice, you may want to check out my blog, WRITING IN THE CROSSHAIRS, www.rolandyeomans.blogspot.com

I am a former high school teacher, family counselor, and now a rare blood courier.

Thank you for taking the time to read my query. I would be happy to send you sample chapters or the full manuscript. I hope that you find some gem in the flood of submissions that pour your way. May your Autumn hold only happy surprises with some relief for punished eyes and swamped workloads.

Roland D. Yeomans M.A.
*************************************
I included the first page as that was part of her submission guidelines. If no pages had been requested, I would have sent the first three paragraphs anyway. That is usually all weary agents read of our submissions before deciding to reject or not.

Just thought my query might help you write your own -- either incorporating some of its facets or steering away from them. Good luck with your queries everyone. And success to us all.

Jennifer Lane

http://jenniferlanebooks.blogspot.com/2012/09/insecure-writers-support-group_5.html

tagged me on THE NEXT BIG THING blog challenge with the question: What is the current title to your WIP?

THREE SPIRIT KNIGHT (Look down a few posts for the cover image) Thanks for tagging me, Jennifer.
And here is a tune that was the favorite of Samuel McCord's one great love, Meilori Shinseen.

INSECURE WRITER SUPPORT_William Faulkner, ghost, here

{1954 Photo by Carl Van Vechten}*

I dropped in to brood with my young friend, Roland.

Gore Vidal died this evening.

It was heralded by an eerie mourning in the Shadowlands, echoing in the darkness like the wails of lost children.

Tall and distinguished looking, with a haughty baritone not unlike that of his conservative arch-enemy William F. Buckley,

Vidal appeared cold and cynical on the surface.

But he bore a melancholy regard for lost worlds, for the primacy of the written word, for "the ancient American sense that whatever is wrong with human society can be put right by human action."

Few living now have that sense. Americans have become the hollow people.

I found Roland lying on his back, a sock, of all things, over his eyes.

He was being murdered by a migraine he groaned.

He asked if I would write to the young writer of today in his place.

I looked at the keyboard.

To write again. And to write on the art of prose.

I felt renewed.

But how to fill the vacuum of the blank monitor screen?

Vacuum. That was the key.

Despite the deluge from the media and this new technology, the internet,

today's young writer is oddly forced to function in a vacuum of the human race.

The irony of your main character is not that he or she is not tough enough or brave enough or deserving enough to be accepted into humanity.

No, there simply is no human race there.

Just a mass of frustrated urges, fears of terrorism, and nightmares of economic insecurity and rampant crime,

unredeemed by hope or education or self-awareness.

All your characters can do is buzz inside the upside-down tumbler of conventions and customs that have replaced humanity.

People all around us are being de-souled like stallions being gelded.

As a writer, your basest crime is to ignore the human soul.

I stroll unseen down the aisles of the bookstores of today's cities.

It seems to me that the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself ...

which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

In your imagination have no room for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart,

the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -

love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

Until he does so, the writer labors under a curse.

He writes not of love but of lust,

of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.

His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars.

He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

He writes of the end of all that makes Man more than an animal.

I decline to accept the end of man. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail.

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice,

but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things.

It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart,

by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past.

The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man,

it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

You writers out there reading this, you have a sacred duty.

Entertain, yes.

But touch the heart, the soul. Mankind needs you to do this. And deep down, you know you need to do this, too.

*{As the restrictions on this collection expired in 1986, the Library of Congress believes this image is in the public domain.

However, the Carl Van Vechten estate has asked that use of Van Vechten's photographs "preserve the integrity" of his work, i.e, that photographs not be colorized or cropped, and that proper credit is given to the photographer. Such has been done respectfully.}***

JULY 4TH'S Insecure Writer's Support

IMPORTANT NOTE: MY CONTEST HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO JULY 15TH FOR THOSE JUST LEARNING OF IT!

July 4th is America's INDEPENDENCE DAY.

I want to help my writing friends become INDEPENDENT of fear

which is the chief cause of aspiring writers never writing the novel inside them.

Here are 23 (a mystic number in itself) quotations from authors much wiser than myself!


Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. —E.L. Doctorow


Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure our what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. —Barbara Kingsolver


Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything. —Gustave Flaubert


The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. —Mary Heaton Vorse


Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. -Anne Lamott


I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters. I find that three or four readings are required to comb out the cliches, line up pronouns with their antecedents, and insure agreement in number between subject and verbs…My connectives, my clauses, my subsidiary phrases don’t come naturally to me and I’m very prone to repetition of words; so I never even write an important letter in the first draft. I can never recall anything of mine that’s ever been printed in less than three drafts. You write that first draft really to see how it’s going to come out. —James A. Michener

Fear of failure is the reason most often cited to explain why so many aspiring writers never realize their dreams. But I think it’s that same fear of failure that absolutely invigorates those who do push through—that is, the fear of not being heard. -Betsy Lerner


If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages. —William Campbell Gault


Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain. -Mark Twain



A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. —Sidney Smith



I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it. -Ernest Hemingway


There is always the risk that you may disappoint yourself. That risk is there even for productive writers, as most writers don’t write as often as they would like. Because of this reality, you will need to practice self-forgiveness. —Eric Maisel


By writing much, one learns to write well. —Robert Southey


If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage. —Cynthia Ozick


Exercise the writing muscle every day, even if it is only a letter, notes, a title list, a character sketch, a journal entry. Writers are like dancers, like athletes. Without that exercise, the muscles seize up. —Jane Yolen


Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors. ― Dean Koontz (ODD HOURS)


Inspiration doesn’t descend like a lightning bolt from the gods. Inspiration comes instead from a steady breath, a solid foundation, and a commitment to the process. —Laraine Herring


Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something—anything—down on paper. —Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)


Work inspires inspiration. Keep working. If you succeed, keep working. If you fail, keep working. If you are interested, keep working. If you are bored, keep working. —Michael Chrichton


Once we are aware of our fears, we are almost always capable of being more courageous than we think. Someone once told me that fear and courage are like lightning and thunder; they both start out at the same time, but the fear travels faster and arrives sooner. If we just wait a moment, the requisite courage will be along shortly. —Lawrence Block


A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than for others. —Thomas Mann


The secret of getting ahead is getting started. —Agatha Christie


At some point we must stop anticipating our journey and set sail. Willa Cather said that she wrote best when she stopped trying to write and began simply to remember. —Ralph Keyes (The Courage to Write)

A last word about writing:

“But once an idea for a novel seizes a writer...

well, it’s like an inner fire that at first warms you and makes you feel good but then begins to eat you alive, burn you up from within.

You can’t just walk away from the fire; it keeps burning. The only way to put it out is to write the book.”
― Dean Koontz, Lightning

“No one's life should be rooted in fear. We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of existence, to be ravished by the beauty of the world, to seek truth and meaning, to acquire wisdom, and by our treatment of others to brighten the corner where we are.”
― Dean Koontz, Life Expectancy

{Thanks to several of my friends who have talked about my contest yesterday, I am EXTENDING THE DEADLINE TO JULY 15TH to give those who've just learned of my contest a fair chance.}
Prepare yourselves for chills.

THE WHISPERING WINDS IN THE LISTENING SKY_Insecure Writers' Suport Post

Insecurity.

We writers have to wrestle with that demon daily.

Developing writing skills bolsters your confidence that you are, indeed,

a writer

Growing in your skill in establishing atmosphere through your descriptions

is one weapon to use against that wily demon, insecurity.

Look around you.

Hearts have grown cold,

ears dull,

minds impatient.

And this affects you as a writer just how?

Each page of your novel could be the reader's last ...

unless ...

unless you make your novel alive and alluring.

People pick up a book in a store, thumb through it, and read a page at random.

That is your only shot at snaring him/her into buying what cost you years of sweat and effort.

Make each page count. Make each paragraph breathe. Make each moment live in the mind of the reader.

Each of the senses should be touched by your words. And one of the ways you do that is to paint your locale with such brushstrokes of prose, the reader "sees" and "feels" and "smells" the unique flavors of your locale.

New Orleans :

Hollow-eyed mothers hugging hungry children within a block of spacious mansions, framed by lush bushes and gleaming iron lacework fences.

Decaying public schools slowly devolving into raucous social jungles and tribal warfare over gang colors and drug territory.

A hardened, jaded police department that in some seasons can be scarier than the city's criminals. Official corruption at every level. Murder rates ever soaring. And hot, steamy air you can wear 7 months out of the year.

And it is a wonderful place to live :

The morning mists parting as the St. Charles streetcar happily clatters through the shimmering fog under the avenue's great oak trees.

The second-line parade of trumpet blowers high-stepping intricate steps in honor of some event or another.

The mellow, haunting notes of Ellis Marsalis playing piano as you sit at Snug Harbor, sipping a drink light on alcohol, heavy on taste.

You must paint your reader into your locale with words that touch the taste buds, stroke their cheeks, and tug on their heartstrings.

Only then, with the setting so real that they hear the sound of throaty laughter and fine jazz, will the Stetson wearing, doomed hero, Samuel McCord, feel like an actual person to them.

Remember :

Each city whispers in its own voice. Your city. My city.

You know streets that whisper to stay away at night.

You know what scandal has stained some avenue beyond repair. You know what person's name is spoken in hushed tones long after he or she has died and been buried in your city.

Each city has its own personality. Like a human's, it changes with trauma, years of abuse, and moments of historic impact.

Lifting the veil from the distinctive features of the setting of your novel makes your whole narrative come alive for your reader.

But how do you do that verbal sleight of hand?


Details.
Some obvious to tourists. Some that you have to ferret out by research in the library, on the internet, or by listening to a local visitor to your setting.

Feelings.
How does your hero/heroine feel about those details? How have they affected the protagonist and those important to him or her?

Weave those details and emotions into a rich tapestry of irony and longing.

What shadowed corner of your setting is especially dangerous or emotion-laden to your central characters? Why?

Paint a passage where that tapestry flutters in the shadows, not quite completely seen but more evocative because of that.

Time.
What era is it in your setting? Has your protagonist lived through more than one era of time in it?

How has the passing seasons shaped his/her mind, opinions, and outlook for the present? For the future? How does your protagonist view his and the setting's past?

Master these points, and your novel will live for your reader.
***