In my writing journey, I have had help along the way. I had
some pretty good teachers in school that got me going. But in retrospect, a lot
of what they taught me didn’t stick (Subject? Object? Participle? What?). When
I was in college I fancied myself as a short story writer. I churned out a lot
of stories that did not go anywhere. Then I had the experience of taking a
writing lab at Idaho State University. That meant one-on-one two days a week
with Dr. William Gibson (no, not the guy who wrote Neuromancer, though that
would have been interesting; this one was an English professor). That was
painful, stressful, hard, but ultimately I would have to say it was necessary.
He tore my writings apart, showed me how bad they were. Things that I thought
were clever and funny, he found to be trite and overdone. It was kind of a
confidence killer. But I made it through. I learned a lot. One of the things I learned
was that I seemed to be very fond of comma splices. Okay, I learned what a
comma splice was. (And if you are now asking what a comma splice is, go here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/maybe-you-like-comma-splices-maybe-you-dont
)
The next bit of help I got with my writing was called
“reading”. I did not read a lot when I was younger. This is another reason my
early stories were lacking. As I have gotten older I have become a voracious
reader. I firmly believe that the more you read, the more your writing will
improve. And you should read a variety of things. Don’t just stick to your
favorite genre. Be an omnireader. This is what I have tried to do anyway. My
favorite genre is Science Fiction. But I also read my fair share of general
fiction (whatever that is), mystery, fantasy, and nonfiction. The library is my
friend. I love having books in the house, but I don’t need any more. I would
much rather check them out from the library. (Yes I know ebooks don’t take up
any space and I do occasionally read on a kindle, but I still prefer to read a
physical book. After all I was born a looooong time ago, back in the days of
rotary telephones and the internet was something fishermen used. Okay I made
that last bit up.)
As I have gotten more serious about my writing, I have found
Youtube has opened up a doorway to helpful resources. Of course as Abraham
Lincoln always said “Be careful, not everything on the internet is true.” There
are a number of vloggers out there who give pretty good advice to writers or
would be writers. Editor Ellen Brock has good advice from an editor’s
perspective. Vivien Reis and Jenna
Moreci are both self-published authors who share their experiences and writing
advice. And for a bonus, their video’s are fun (Vivien made a video that gave
the best explanation ever about passive voice). Of course there are many, many
others out there but these are the ones that I have found helpful.
One more helper I have had in my writing is my wife. She
patiently reads whatever I throw out there and gives me honest criticism and
helpful encouragement. I borrow some of her artwork from time to time, with which I can do cool things. She even helped me figure out how to do this blog thing.
We will see where that leads.
(Earlier I talked about the importance of reading. Presumably
that means I was influenced by all that reading. In next week’s blog I will
talk about authors and/or books that have influenced me.)
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