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I have been in this business long enough now to find myself being asked for my advice. Advice on all sorts of subject’s business related. And non-business too, but that’s for another time. Right now, we will let you in on my opinions about the craft of writing. Yeppers, I said opinions. No one is an expert. Even the greatest of writers see their own flaws. If they don’t then they’re not great. They’re just puffed up egotists.

Do I have attitude on this subject? Oh yeah. A great deal of it. See, the writing business is filled with experts. Literally so many you can swing a stick and hit a dozen or more. Experts on the art of writing, selling, formatting, etc., etc. Pick a subject about writing and you will find dozens of experts you never knew existed.

Therein lies the rub. You don’t know them so why should you listen to them? I should know. However, that too is for another time. Right now, I have been asked by several of those I correspond with to write a Rant on my opinion of writing. Specifically, what they think I find is necessary to succeed at writing. So here is my top five. Remember these are my opinion. I am not an expert and will never be. I will forever be in the learning process. As you should be if you are writers.

Write.  That’s it. simple. If you want to learn how to write, then write. If you want to succeed at writing – write. Write like your life depends on it. Of course, if you love to write then writing isn’t the problem. Time is. If you’re like me, you have tons of stuff floating around in your head that you know will make a good story. Know it like nothing else. You simply lack the time to get it all down. And don’t worry about it being pretty or neat or even if it makes sense at the time. Write. Put it all down on paper. I have read first drafts that would make you cry they were so bad. But? But when it came down to the edit and rewrites the diamond inside the draft emerged. So, write. Write in your style and your ideas. Write and then write some more.

Move.  No, not move away though we sometimes want to. What I mean is when you have finished with your first draft. Move on. Let it go. Forget about it. Write about something else. Move your mind as far from the manuscript as possible. Then go back. Give it a month at least. When you move back to work on it you will look at it with new eyes. When you become so involved with a story, you miss the mistakes you make. The plot holes. The lack of flow. The fact that what you are reading isn’t what you thought you wrote. There it is for you. Thought. We often can’t see what we write because our minds are involved. We think we put down on paper what we really meant but when we read it later, we discover it isn’t what we intended at all.

Read your work out loud.  I can’t stress this enough. Stop writing and read it. Read it as a reader. Then read it out loud. When your mind is forced to read the words you’ve written out loud then you find the problems in the story. You find a better way to say something. Discover you’ve used the word “that” a hundred and twelve times. So shut the door. Hush the kiddies. Turn off the TV and the radio and listen to the words as you speak them.

Don’t Edit as you write. I mean this.  When you write, write. Let the story out. You can edit it all later. Believe me, you can. What you can’t do is recapture the moment when the words are flowing. When the story is clear in your mind. Then the story practically writes itself.

Give yourself time.  I thought about what to write as my number five a lot. There are tons of things important to the success of a writer. However, if you don’t guard the time you need to write, then you will never write. Or finish your work. Guard your writing time like a dog guards a bone. Don’t let anything take the time you’ve set aside to write – away. Don’t worry about routine. If you don’t keep the time you need to write, then you don’t have a writing routine to worry about.

I don’t care about how or when or what you write about. I don’t care about routines or outlines or any of those things. I care that you sit in front of a computer or use a pen and paper or even crayons and simply write. Tell your stories. Let them out – the World wants to read them .

I’m Ross, Editor at The Pyrateheart Press, and I’m out.