It’s a lot like life honestly.
Here’s the number one hint.
Wait forever to start writing.
Don’t wait to start. Don’t expect lightening to strike or a muse to come down from the heavens.
Just write. Call it practice if ‘writing a novel’ seems too big a task. Trick your mind into being chill about it. If you want to do something, you have to do it. Don’t wait for permission. Just do it.
As long as it’s legal and doesn’t hurt other people. Obviously that sentence up there about not waiting for permission doesn’t apply to all things.
But it does freaking apply to art and writing and joy and fun.
Again, as long as your fun doesn’t hurt other creatures.
Back to the point. We wait all our lives for inspiration, for a prince or warrior-queen to come sweep us off our feet, for the muse to bless us with the perfect novel or poem or family or painting or child. But we have to put in the work. We have to be brave and actively go after what it is we want.
We might write a ton of sucky sentences. We might forget how to use a comma. We might fail and get rejected a million times.
That’s what makes the quest good though. That’s what makes the goal worth it.
So if you want to write a novel? Write it. Just get started.
If you don’t want to write a novel? Don’t.
Study craft. Push yourself. Think about who your story is about and how they relate to the world. Just write down the words you hear in your brain, the visions you see. Start it.
You’ve got this.
Writing Tip of the Pod:
Everything up there, man.
Dog Tip for Life
Dude. Hang out in the truck.
SHOUT OUT
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License. Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Night Owl” by Broke For Free.
WRITING NEWS
IN THE WOODS – READ AN EXCERPT, ORDER NOW!
My new book, IN THE WOODS, is out!
Gasp!
It’s with Steve Wedel. It’s scary and one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Buzz Books for Summer 2019. There’s an excerpt of it there and everything! But even cooler (for me) they’ve deemed it buzz worthy! Buzz worthy seems like an awesome thing to be deemed!
You can order this bad boy, which might make it have a sequel. The sequel would be amazing. Believe me, I know. It features caves and monsters and love. Because doesn’t every story?
ART NEWS
You can buy limited-edition prints and learn more about my art here on my site.
PATREON OF AWESOME
You can get exclusive content, early podcasts, videos, art and listen (or read) never-to-be-officially published writings of Carrie on her Patreon. Levels go from $1 to $100 (That one includes writing coaching and editing for you wealthy peeps).
WHAT IS PATREON?
A lot of you might be new to Patreon and not get how it works. That’s totally cool. New things can be scary, but there’s a cool primer HERE that explains how it works. The short of it is this: You give Patreon your paypal or credit card # and they charge you whatever you level you choose at the end of each month. That money supports me sharing my writing and art and podcasts and weirdness with you.