One final post (I promise) on "wanting it more than life" etc etc.
I've had a lot of thinking/relaxing time over the past two weeks and I have spent some of that time thinking about my writing, why I write, what I want from it yada yada yada.
I thought about what I had written here in the last week and I asked myself "Do I want it enough?" Well I clearly think that wanting it more than life is a little excessive so maybe I don't. Maybe not wanting it enough will be my downfall.
But those of you that have been visiting for a while might remember the dark time that I went through last year. That darkness started a year ago yesterday so I have been thinking about it a lot. While I am happy to report that the world is bright again I think that remembering last year is what makes me feel the way I do about "wanting it more than life." There are so many more things that are more important than writing - for me anyway. If I was offerred the chance to be a best selling author OR some of the things that I know are really important I know which I am going with everytime.
So after accepting that I am unlikely to succeed in the best selling author stakes because I don't want it more than life , will I stop writing. DEFINATELY NOT. I enjoy writing, I enjoy seeing my name in print from time to time, and I certainly enjoy the odd payment that I receive. Nothing will stop me from doing that.
If there is anyone reading this who is likely to be asked to give advice on how to be a successful writer can I ask a favour? Please tell us something that will really help like, how to make our submissions stand out from the rest or how to impress an editor or ( and this is a problem for me) the mother thing. Is it M or m?
Anyway enough of this. Like they say in Russia - Moscow.
6 comments:
Glad the dark time is over. No doubt that was holding you back.
From what I can gather, getting published is incredibly difficult, so you have done very well with what you have achieved so far. I think if you're writing purely to get into print, then that would be your downfall. Just wanting something badly enough is not the way to achieve it. We have to be good at it too. To do that, we all need to learn and improve. That's what I'm working on, anyway.
We write because we love to. Getting published would be a great bonus, but not doing so won't stop us writing.
Now, on to your capitalisation question. I may be wrong, but I think the noun mother has a small 'm', unless it's used as a name. For example: I call my mother by her name sometimes, but other times I call her Mother.
As for tips on how to become a successful writer: I'll let you know, when I become one ;o)
Well I can answer the M or m mother thing.
If you think of Mother, Mum, Father, Dad etc as being a name it might help. You'd say: 'When Mum told me that Dad had gone fishing...'
But you'd use lower case if: When my mum told me my dad had...'
I think it's stupid really and don't like this 'newish rule' at all.
I dedicated one of my books to My Dad and really had to argue to keep the capital D for Dad.
It's the same with king or queen as well. The king but King Solomon.
Oh, and with Auntie/Uncle. That looks even worse to me when you have to say 'my auntie Beth said'. But again you can say Auntie Beth said...
Hmm, now you've turned me into a ranter (grin).
Well I can tell you that the mother thing is a small m when you say 'my mother' or 'her mother' and a large M when you're using dialogue, as in 'Oh, Mother!'. Because, I think, it's a small m when it's an ordinary noun (like chair or kettle) and a large M when you're using it as a proper noun, as in a name or title.
That's how I always do it anyway. But then I'm not a highly successful author, and maybe that's why ;-)
As for the success thing, I'm right with you on that. It would be nice, but it's more important to enjoy what we're doing. As I've said on my blog today, life's too short to be doing something that makes you miserable.
Like you, I'm coming out of the fog of a year of problems, and it does make you realise what's important.
Great blog. Best advice I was ever given: 1) try not to write in your pyjamas. Get dressed to get down to work. 2) write something - however insignificant it seems, every single day.
Thanks for all the advice about M/mother etc. I'll try to remember it but if I forget I've got something to refer back to.
Hi Kate, great to meet you. Interesting advice about not writing in your pyjamas. I don't do that but I do write with the laptop on my knee and my feet propped up on the end of the sofa. Thinking about it that maybe is a tad laid back. I might get more done if I was at a table. I'll give it a try.
Ooer, I've been wearing my pyjamas all day today (actually it's a pair of pyjama trousers and a nightshirt). Well it's been tipping down with rain all day, and I wasn't going out so I thought why bother getting dressed?
Yet I did manage to write a story.
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