Wordsmithing: qualities and challenges

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

THE 4 QUALITIES YOU NEED IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER

WRITING WITH MILITARY PRECISION 1

A civilian is a person with an idea; a writer is a very different animal.

KEY QUALITIES:

STRENGTH

You carry a life on your back when you withdraw into your fantasy world

ENDURANCE

Many start but few finish their novel

DETERMINATION

When the odds stacked against you, it would be easy to pull up a chair and admire the height

COMMITMENT

Page fifty acts like an anchor, there are many distractions drawing you away from the end goal: completion - stage one.

If you posses each of these qualities, and you have the idea, the time and the patience, that is when you are ready to enlist in Twitter communication, Blog rolls and must prepare to face Facebook. You have enrolled in a comprehensive, self-improvement programme: you have determined to become a writer.

Good luck.

I have most trouble with Commitment. The next idea glitters in my eye-line, that kind of distraction can get a person... in trouble. ;)

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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Wednesday, 1 December 2010

THE 4 QUALITIES YOU NEED IF YOU WANT TO BECOME A WRITER