My Journey to Becoming a Published Author
I see a lot of blog posts and articles about what people have been doing to get themselves published. Some of it is helpful but I want to start my blog with my complete journey to becoming a published author. What does being a published author mean? Well to me it can be either in print or digitally but either format is recognized and liked by more readers than just my husband.
Taking that first step can lead you down a path of excitement and horror, but you have to take that first step.
So what exactly do you do to start the process of becoming an author? Well, you have to start writing and continue writing every day. You have to create a practice, almost a routine like brushing your teeth or having that morning coffee at 8 a.m. You have to consistently encourage yourself to do the work and keep on doing the work like it's a job because basically, it is. Your writing skills take years to develop and hone and you can only get there by writing and rewriting your work and molding it into something you feel confident about.
Find Creative Ways to Inspire Yourself
Some writers need encouragement by something other than a notification on their phone reminding them or a loved one asking every week, "Did you finish that book yet?" I know not every person who writes is creative in other ways, but I think it's important to seek out things that inspire and create inspiration in our everyday lives to keep us interested and happy. I have dabbled in a lot of different mediums of expression in the arts except basket weaving and I have found each thing frustrating and inspiring at the end of the day. Not everything I have tried has stuck with me but it has encouraged me to look deeper into myself and experience feelings and emotions that have helped encourage my writing language. One interesting art video started with writing out things we hated about ourselves or wished we wouldn't have done. Basically, anything bad we wished we could go back and change. We then cut those into sentence strips and pasted them onto our card stock. From there we painted over them with something we loved or some colors and designs we liked to color out the bad with good uplifting colors/thoughts. This was a great way to get out some frustrations and encourage positive thoughts in their place. The limitation was that your sentence or idea had to fit on the strip of paper so I had to use descriptive words evocative of feelings and emotions omitting the structure of a sentence. By doing this I realized two things,
By associating feelings and emotions with the ideas I was opening up my writer's eye and giving myself a way to show not tell when writing.
Sometimes before you can have good you have to have something bad.
Moving on from this I carry these brain wrinkles with me as I write. The most important one is the ability to meticulously write out the feelings and experiences of my characters. A good character is one that a writer can describe without telling you straight out if they are good or bad. You have to read the words to know the character.
What next?
So I actually need to tell you something about starting this journey. Well, honestly I have been writing for a long time, short pieces and angry letters to myself for no one to set their eyes on. This doesn't really help in the long run because it doesn't equate to anything that I can use to create a story. But what it does do is help me work through feelings and emotions and honing my skills of writing. To be honest, what I consider my actual writing started right before I entered my MFA program. I was inspired to write a story and so I put pen to paper and created the required amount to submit to be admitted. I was, and I am currently working on my MFA but as I do, I am gaining knowledge and skills about writing and what the work of a writer is.
The Plot Thickens
Along the way, I have written three chapters for my novel and have held off until I enter my thesis writing period. Prior to actually writing the novel I used a program called Scrivnr to plot out my novel. This isn't a plug for you to go out and subscribe to Scrivnr or purchase, but It's one tool I found that I use that is useful and I have continued to use. It allows me to go in-depth with my characters and add their characteristics and descriptors. It also allows for overall story plotting with different techniques which a writer really needs. You MUST plot before you can write. It doesn't matter which way you do it, but you will always come back to plotting things in your story no matter what. Even when you think you don't need it, or want it, plotting is happening when you start thinking about elements of your story and adding pieces together in your mind. Any way you look at it, you are plotting! So let me help you with a bit of advice, just sit down and find a way to plot whatever it is you're already plotting. There are numerous techniques out there to try and I'm sure you will find one that works for you.
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Happy Writing! -H.F.
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