learning

The New Things

Being a writer is one of thee most maddening things I have ever done! For every project that I want to do, there are 4 others that spring up. They seduce me from the current work, and then I leave them–jilted and guilty –to return to the first love. Determined to finish what I started.

This is what writers do though, dear ones! We create! And in the fury of creating, we have these side loves that call to us. These things we start when the first love (read: current work) has us in a funky place with no way out. I mean, Octavia Butler wrote Fledgling as a side project because the other work she was writing was ‘too much’! Wri

Encouragement Pages-01/29/2020

Self-rejection is a slow poison.

It is a poison whose apothecary is familiar. Whom is familiar with their victims as well as their enemies.

But what happens when they are one and the same?

Every time you reject a story, a portion of your imagination vanishes. Every time you scrap a story because you’re scared to write it, more of you vanishes.

Rage against the dying of the light.

Poison is for those dying or marked for death.

Writing is a source of life.

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris

Encouragement Pages-01/24/2020

Be gentle with yourself today.

The work in progress is called this for a reason. The progress in this work can be incremental—but do it. No matter how small or insignificant.

Do the work.

Happy, loud or sad, but do it.

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris

Encouragement Pages-01/22/2020

Shameless plug to remind you to read.

Writers are readers, inquisitive about the world around them so they can create another. If you’re stuck in process of creating an WIP and become discouraged, take a break. Fill up that blank time with a book.

Sometimes the words of others, stir our own.

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris

Enouragement Pages-12/20/2019: The Grand What If (2)

Being a writer means you will/may always have questions. The toughest ones to answer always involve The Why.

Why do you write?

Why aren’t you writing?

Why are you afraid to write?

Regardless of genre, or length of project, you will have to answer these questions.

Sometimes once during the course of a work, sometimes repeatedly in the course of a day!

But they must be answered.

Moreover, they must be answered by you.

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris

Encouragement Pages-12/18/2019: The Grand What-If’s (1)

The end of the month—end of the year!—is in a matter of weeks.

To that observation, I leave you with this question:

What if you believed you could do it?

I mean it, what would happen you believed you could write the work you set out to create—independent of other people’s opinions or support?

Only you can answer this. And should do so immediately.

With Love & Ink,

JBHarris