Writing Your Masterpiece

I talked about self-publishing a couple of weeks ago and promised that I would take you through the steps.  Last week I talked about how important it is for us to be present in everything we do.  This week I'm going to write (at least a little) about something that's kind of important to the self-publishing process.

Writing a novel.

The point of this blog entry is not to take you through the entire process of writing a manuscript.  That's not really what I do here.  If you're looking for help with the craft of writing, go to my @writingnodrama Twitter stream, where I talk about the day-in, day-out process of writing a novel or a script.  You can also go to that stream's blog.

The idea here is that in order for us to get that writing career we've always wanted, we kind of need to...well...write.  #awkward

If you already have a manuscript written or well on the way to being written, this may not apply to you quite as much.  The questions you need to ask yourself is whether or not you're moving forward as quickly as you'd like and whether you've gotten to the point that you're needlessly fine-tuning instead of putting it out there.

However, if you've got the idea for a novel in your head and you're not moving forward with it, the question becomes, "Why on earth not?"  What's holding you back?  What "reasons" do you give yourself for not putting words on the page, even if they're horrifically bad.  Believe me, every author has written bad stuff.

Whatever the voices in your head are telling you, the real answer is that on some level you're scared.  Scared of exposure, scared of failure, or just simply scared that on some basic plane you're not worthy of success.

Now, you can listen to those voices.  That's a choice.  It is, however, a choice that will mean that succeeding with a writing career will be a bit of a tough sell.  It also means your voice will be silenced.

And that is the real tragedy.