Embrace that which is uncomfortable. Sometimes to get at what it is you want from a work, you have to wrestle with it. You have to be both writer and reader!
Answer the questions that need to be answered. Veil the things you want your readers to sit with. But wrestle, my dear ones. Be prepared to wrestle. The writing will be fun, the ride will be wild. Just beware of the curves.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
The question most often fielded by writers is, “What are you working on?” From that picture, enter the WIP (Work In Progress). There is a pleasure that comes from discussing the new work–its like talking about a crush.
Or a new love, that loves you back–just as much as you do.
All these gorgeous blank pages waiting on the stroke of your hand, the sparks of your imagination. With this steady seduction, I want you to imagine the work you want to create. What you want the reader to see, feel, imagine or experience.
I want you to fall in love with the work first. If you have not fallen in love with what you are creating…no one else will.
Write what you love–love what you write.
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
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
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
Discouragement. Doubt. Self-rejecting.
These are the dragons writers must continually slay. It is not sufficient to leash them, they must be slain. At their deaths, you fuel your pen.
Do not reason with discouragement.
Do not listen to doubt.
Do not think so little of your imagination that you will not entertain or humor it.
Slay the dragons.
And dispatch them without mercy.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
The WIP.
Work in Progress.
The thing about about a WIP, any WIP, is that it will take time. You have to understand that writing is done in *3 parts:
1.) Inspiration
2.) Researching/Development
3.) Producing
The writing is both art and process. Do not shy away from the process. The process is where all the good stuff is; get to the good stuff.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
*Look for this as a miniseries. Soon.
