December 2, 2011

This week in the “Destressing the Writing Life” workshop, we talked about information overload–how much valuable information is available on the Internet–and the pressure we feel because there’s no time to read and absorb it all.

To that end, I hope my recommendations once a week help you sift through the wonderful (often free) material out there. To that end, here’s my Friday offering.

 

Take all weekend to read them, if you like. Do NOT stress over getting them all read right now!

• How do you know if you’re “called to write”?
• Why does this writer choose NOT to self-publish?
• Here are five steps to developing more discipline!
• Can you soften the uncertainty that comes with writing?
• Here’s a fabulous checklist for critiquing your own work or someone else’s.

 

 

 

October 14, 2011

As a writer, don’t ever under-estimate the power of self-discipline. Talent, passion, and discipline are needed–but the greatest of these is discipline.

Best-selling author Elizabeth George speaks to this point on the first day she faces her students in her creative writing classes. Study this quote from her book, Write Away–and read through to the zinger at the end.

“You will be published if you possess three qualities–talent, passion, and discipline.

You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination–either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline.

You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion, but still have discipline. Just go the bookstore and pick up a few ‘notable’ titles and you’ll see what I mean.

But if all you possess is talent or passion, if all you possess is talent and passion, you will not be published. The likelihood is you will never be published. And if by some miracle you are published, it will probably never happen again.”

Be Encouraged!

This is great news for all writers, I believe. We worry sometimes that we don’t have enough talent, that we have nothing original to say, that our voices won’t attract today’s readers. But as Ms. George says above–and after writing and teaching for thirty years, I totally agree–discipline is what will make you or break you as a writer.

Why is this good news? Because self-discipline can be mastered, bit by bit, day by day, until it’s a habit. Talent is a gift over which we have no control, and passion comes and goes with our feelings and circumstances. But your necessary ingredient to success–discipline–can belong to anyone.

Do whatever you have to do to develop the writing habit. Let that be your focus, and see if the writing–and publishing–doesn’t take care of itself!