Wise words!

Neil Gaiman is among my favourite authors for his fluid style and his amazing body of work – American Gods, the Graveyard Book and others being personal favourites. I have seen this image doing the rounds on Facebook and on Twitter and thought I’d share what those rules mean for me.

1. Write

Wait… Isn’t the first stage of the writing process procrastination? Doh! Well then, time to turn off Facebook, the TV, crack on some heavy metal backing tracks (no lyrics to sing along to) and actually write. Who knew?

2. Put one word after another…

I’ve not really suffered with Writer’s Block much. As a rule, I generally have more ideas than I can write about. Often, they are god-awful, but sometimes these ideas are pretty cool. It is very similar to having verbal diarrhoea – not so much Writer’s Block as Writer’s Splurge!

3. Finish what I am writing.

Um. Crap. Yes, I hardly ever finish my longer pieces. I have a children’s novella almost complete bar a few thousand words, sitting staring at me. I have a good half of a horror novella that really got me interested in writing, languishing on my hard drive. My files are ghosts, never-born stories of half-finished ideas. Hehe – even the posts on this blog have their share of these spectres – Posts begun and never finished, and waiting for life to be breathed into them as they are completed. Perhaps I have found my new target for writing?

4. Reread old pieces.

This is something I do with the spectres of stories I haven’t finished. Then I end up rewriting sections of them, adding a few thousand more words sometimes… and then leaving them again. Perhaps I have too many ideas, but I don’t think so. I think perhaps, having several pieces on the go at once helps me. I always have something I want to write in one or other of them, at least.

5. Ask for feedback.

Yes! I am a beta reader myself, and always seek criticism of my work. But often the feedback is unhelpful. ‘Very Cinematic’ doesn’t tell me much. ‘This is good’ isn’t helpful. I feel like real criticism is a very in-demand skill.

6. Let things go.

This is a hard one but one I have begun to accept. The point of the blog remains to publish and share my writing with others in the hope of improving my own writing skills. To do that, manuscripts have to be published and often – I have found – I’ve overlooked simple errors in them. Perfection is like chasing the horizon, though. I like that. I have permission to be bad!

7. Laugh at my own jokes.

Family and friends will tell you, I do this all the time. Especially in A&E at 2am trying to make a selfie duckface while suffering from partial facial paralysis and laughing far too loud.

Thank you to Neil Gaiman for those wise words!

If you want to read some of my original fiction, either hit the Library tab at the top of the page, or else begin reading my fantasy novella, Kingdom of the Lion, here.