Heeeeeeeeellllllllllllooooooooo Otterites!
As long-time listeners and readers of this website know, we’re all either working on writing projects or have had something published in the past.
For me, I’ve been busy with non-fiction and fiction projects. On the non-fiction side, I’ve had a large hand in helping Friend Of Snakes and Otters (FOSO) W. Timothy Johnson publish Values Based Success Journey, a great little tome about creating a vision, mission and goals based on your values. That was a passion project for him, and it’s been in the works for a long time. Check it out.
On the fiction side, I’ve finally returned to my horror/suspense novel and am working on the second draft. Lots of work to do as I’m expanding the original story into at least five core books and possibly a couple of spin off series in the same universe. It takes up a lot of time, but as the title above says, Writers Write. If you’re not writing, you need to be reading. If you’re not reading, you need to be doing the second thing from the title: Hone Your Craft.
Cajun, Franics and I have attended several writers’ conferences over the last few years. Cajun is at one right now in fact. Conferences are fantastic ways to learn more. There’s usually a good number of workshops and seminars at them. You can network with other authors and hobnob with editors and publishers.
All that is part of honing your craft. Craft is about getting better at your trade. For writers it’s about putting better words on the screen and in print. It’s about telling our stories in compelling ways that grab the reader’s attention and keeps it. It’s also about getting published and marketing your book. That’s part of the craft too.
Getting better at putting words on paper/screen isn’t just about practice. You can practice 5 hours a day and write for 10. Doesn’t mean you’ll get any better. The question is WHAT are you practicing? If you’re just getting better at your bad habits, where’s the good in that? Honing your craft is getting better at the right things. It’s getting better where you’re weak.
To do that, you need to know what good writing looks like. That means reading the classics. It means reading the best-sellers. It means looking at how those authors put their words together and comparing your work to theirs. Don’t worry about looking bad compared to the masters. You will.
That’s why they’re the masters.
Read books on writing. In a later post, I’ll review books that have helped me. Listen to writing podcasts. Another post is coming for podcasts too. Read and listen to authors who write in your genre. Read and listen to authors in other genres. No genre is perfectly self-contained. Each piece of writing will have elements of other genres in them. Thrillers can have some romance and mystery too for example.
Don’t be afraid to try new things and techniques.
Don’t stop writing. Don’t use honing your craft as an excuse not to write.
Don’t stop honing your craft. Don’t use writing as an excuse not to hone your craft.
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