Wordsmithing: foundations for success

Thursday, 2 December 2010

THE 5 FOUNDATIONS OF WRITING

WRITING WITH MILITARY PRECISION 2

Can you dismantle a plot and put it back together again, in five minutes? Read. Write. Improve. Keep at it, until you can! ;)

ARE YOU FIGHTING FIT AND READY?

1 BASIC TRAINING

Learn the skills; practise them; hone them: you may be called upon to use them for-real, one day

2 DISCIPLINE

Internal motivators will help you achieve those external word goals and literary achievements

3 LOYALTY

Loyalty to yourself is lonely; writers function best when they share the burden. As one of a team, writers support and encourage each other in times of crisis

4 ORGANISATION

Research. Know what needs to be done, plan and see it through

5 COURAGE

Writing is not an easy option, many decent people create well-written novels and get nowhere (fast or slow.) This is more than a skirmish or a series of battles: you need to be ready for the long haul.

The McKinnons, the Yorkshire Regiment, the 3rd Marine Corp and Star-trek DS9 can't all be wrong:

"Fortes fortuna adiuvat" : Fortune favours the brave. ;)

Are you feeling fortunate today?

RETURN: YA Paranormal Romance

I was running late. But, it was nothing I couldn’t make up with a bit of effort. I shook my head. Confident and happy? I smiled. Increasing my stride, I pushed until the muscles in my legs burned. I kept up the pace even when the hill grew steeper.

Magpie Lane was hardly wider than a ribbon that edged the woods but that didn’t stop traffic using it to get to the motorway quicker. Large trucks and fast cars loved Magpie Lane. They sent vibrations running through me rising from the soles of my trainers. I felt the disturbance in the ground, even before the air pressure tried to knock me off balance. I hunched my shoulders as the cab hauling a container spat stones up at me.

Jogging on the spot, at the entrance to woodland, I ached to leave the road and go inside. My Mum was probably still asleep but I could hear her you-never-know-what might-be-in-there lecture buzzing on repeat inside my head. I should run safe. Not even I would argue that running through the woods on my own was the best definition of safe but I wanted to run-wild and the woodland offered me that. This early, I should be safe from axe murderers or perverts in the trees and besides, I was fast.

I jogged down the slope into the trees. From two paces in, I felt different. Freer. It felt so right. Running in the woods did great things for my style. Avoiding the roots and dodging branches forced my stride longer, I had to step higher. The woodland, The Weald, was only a sliver of ancient woodland that the developers forgot to build on but it felt like it could have been anywhere. Everywhere. At any time. The oaks and beech trees dominated the space and the skinny, silver-birches squeezed up beside them. I laughed. For a second, the woods reminded me of school and I needed to run a lot faster.

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Thursday, 2 December 2010

THE 5 FOUNDATIONS OF WRITING