Tuesday Takeover: Go Your Own Way: Writing With a Unique Voice by Ashley Kemp

Reading is such a fundamental part of my life that I’m convinced it must be encoded in my DNA. I probably wouldn’t know what to do in a world without books. Thus, when I write about today’s topic, it is not from the perspective of an author, nor an editor, or even a blogger.  Rather, I am writing as one who lives and breathes between the pages others have provided for me to read.  As one who devours at least an hour of type every day.

One could argue about what makes for good reading material for a good year and still not cover all the bases. There are, after all, hundreds of thousands, nay, over a million books available within a few clicks of a button these days.  Therefore, I want to be a bit more specific and discuss one aspect of what I find makes for the best of books.

For me, you simply can’t go wrong if you write with a unique voice. It doesn’t have to be composed of just one trait but it should be original to you as the author. For example, if I grab a handful of books off a bargain shelf, I can easily confuse them and get bored within minutes.  However, if I pick up a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, I would know it without a cover or title pages because I would recognize the sly, slightly skewed pop culture references and satirical taste of humorous fantasy rife with zany wizards and dimwitted guards.  When you write with a unique voice you stand out in the sea of anonymous authors who hit “publish” on Amazon.

Your voice can most certainly include your characters. I am loathe to imagine a Sarah Noffke Dream Traveler book book without Ren Lewis, but that shouldn’t be the whole of it.  Are you sarcastic and dry?  Go with it.  Do you like to describe everyday minutiae using culinary metaphors? Be my guest.

More succinctly, write from within expounding upon what you already know. Don’t be afraid to borrow from others, but don’t be a carbon copy.  Give me something to remember, to make me feel, think, and want to tell my friends about.  Give me you.

Tuesday Takeover: Read this when you want to quit by S.M. Boyce

Hey there, creative soul.

This may hit close to home, but you need to hear it. Truly understanding and applying what I’m about to say will set you apart from other authors in a career-changing way.

Before I start, let me give you some background. I’m a tough-love cheerleader. I say what needs to be said, stuff that’s not always easy to hear, but I’ve had incredible honor of more than one author telling me that I’m the reason they didn’t give up, that my encouragement and support got into the tough times, through the moments where they were going to throw in the towel on this writing thing.

I published in 2011 but I’ve been writing far longer. I even set my scholarship to get a dual degree in creative writing and marketing. I’ve been called a pioneer in the world, and while I’m not so sure about that, I work hard to constantly improve my writing business—because that’s what we are, entrepreneurs.

So what do you do when the muse fails you? When you hate everything you write, or the sales aren’t coming in?

What do you do when you want to quit?

You get clear.

Expectations vs. The Why

Get clear on your why and how that differs from your expectations.

• Expectations – what you plan to get out of a situation, like this class or your writing career. It’s an outcome. It’s external.
• The Why – your reason for doing something. Your motivation. It’s what drives you forward even when everything is falling apart. It’s internal.

When we got into writing, even the best of us had expectations. Expectations for how much we would sell, how many hours a day we’d write, how many books we would publish in a year.

The Why, however, is important because it will carry you through self-doubt, failure, fear, rejection, and all the less-than-glamorous parts of our career that often kick people to the curb. Knowing your why will motivate you when expectations aren’t met.

Let’s face it: expectations don’t hold under scrutiny. When times get tough and expectations go unmet, you’re less likely to pick yourself up and carry on if your WHY isn’t strong enough to propel you forward.

My challenge for you: drop your expectations for your writing career.

(cue collective gasps and fainting)

Hear me out. Instead of establishing expectations—which I’d like for you to reframe as goals—focus on your why when the going gets tough.

Why do you write?

I practice what I preach, honey. I’ve faced incredible failure and had plenty of opportunities to quit. Every successful person has. It’s the way of this life.

If you rely on only your expectations (external factors you can’t control) and don’t know your why (internal factor you CAN control), you won’t have the strength to pull through these times because it won’t seem worth it.

The most common example I see: If you’re like me when I first started (and thousands of other authors), you probably want to become an overnight success. You may expect it, even.

The first step to cleaning house and understanding your own personal WHY is to get real with the truth behind every “overnight success.” The concept of overnight success is a myth 99% of the time, anyway. Why, you ask? Because we as the admiring public only see the tip of the iceberg.

If you’re feeling depressed, hold up. Success is absolutely achievable! More on that in a second. First, I want to talk about overnight successes.

Forbes ran a fantastic article about how overnight success is a myth. Here’s the formula to success, according to author George Bradt:

1. Find an unsolved problem and solve it
2. Continue improving on your solution to stay ahead of competition
3. Nail your positioning
4. Find the right resources
5. Work harder over time

Statistics are rampant, but on average (from 6 to 15) it takes about 10 years to create an “overnight success.” It’s all about perception: we see the achievement, not the years of self-doubt and backbreaking work it took to get noticed and embraced on a large scale.

So have patience, grasshopper. Patience, tenacity, and motivation.

Not convinced? Let’s take a look at some “overnight successes”:

• Apple’s iPod took 3 years to reach success status. The 1st edition wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t until the 4th version that sales took off.
• Gmail was considered a doomed project and took 2.5 years to create
• Amazon wasn’t profitable for the first 7 years
• Pandora wasn’t profitable for the first 10 years
• Rovio, creators of Angry Birds, went through 50 apps before creating their hit
• Fedex made a loss of $26 million in its first 26 months of operations in 1973 and didn’t become a success until the late 10s

Success takes talent, patience, luck, and tenacity. So keep on truckin’.

Some final thoughts

If you walk away with only one tidbit from this article, remember that success is relative. You and you alone decide what it means for you to be a success. For some, it’s making enough money to write full time. For others, it’s selling one book. For others still, it’s making a million dollars.

Focus on YOU. Only you. What does success mean for you, personally? This will help you manage and understand both your expectations and your Why.

Your homework

Ha! Didn’t think you’d get homework from a blog post, huh? That’s how I roll.

1. Write down your expectations (of yourself, this course, and your writing career).
2. Drag a big ole line through ALL of those.
3. What’s your why? (What drives you, this course, and your writing career).
4. What’s your concept of success?

Share in the Facebook group or email us privately (this one is completely optional, but the rest aren’t!)

About S. M. Boyce

When S. M. Boyce graduated with a degree in creative writing, she realized that made her well-qualified for serving French fries. It would take years of writing hundreds of thousands of words of all kinds before she became the fantasy and horror novelist she is today.

Boyce specializes in action-packed stories that weave in fantasy, mystery, and heroines with a knack for mischief. All romantic leads are based loosely on her husband, who proves that soulmates are real.

She has a deep love for ghosts, magic, and spooky things. If you’ve already finished her books, check out her blog or twitter feed for a dash of adventure.

Find her online:

• Buy her books
• Visit her author website
• Visit Boyce Ink, her free resource for writers

Tuesday Takeover: Life is….a Serving of Pie and a Lesson in Perseverance by Elora Mitchell

Back in May of 2015, I finished something that was a lifetime in the making. I published my first novel. I had been writing/re-writing for just over a year, but it’s been a wish of mine to write since I held my first book as a child.

 For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’m a perfectionist. I’m the woman whose house is always clean and in order. I’m the wife who wakes up early to make a lunch for my husband. I’m the mom who stresses over every little thing I say and do to my kids.

 Being a perfectionist is the one thing I truly hate about myself. I’ve spent the last few years trying to break free from its snare. My husband and kids all try to get me to relax more, and while I take it easy more than I used to, I’m still a work in progress.

 Back to my first published novel. I wrote, I rewrote. I proofread, then read it backwards, sentence by sentence, looking for mistakes. Then I read it a couple more times.

 When I was sure it was good, I loaded it into Amazon, hit publish, and gave myself a huge pat on the back.

 I did it!! I finished!!

 The reviews started coming in—one here, another there—four and five star reviews. I was stoked. Then a dear friend of mine reviewed the book. It was a nice review, a kind review, a four star review, but it contained those words that chilled me to my very core—“there are a few mistakes.” She later e-mailed me and encouraged me to get a proofreader.

 I was HORRIFIED. My first thought was to pull my book off the internet, burn the pages, and hide from the world. But thankfully, I’ve grown up over the last few years and have learned that we are human. We make mistakes. It’s a part of life. What matters most is what we do next.

 So I cut myself a slice of humble pie, found a proofreader, and tried again. It’s scary, and to be honest, embarrassing. But it’s life.

 The point is, we ALL have something like this in our lives. We all get knocked down from time to time, and sometimes, we stay down for awhile. Some of us have been knocked down so many times that we feel like we don’t have the strength to get back up. It’s then that we need to work extra hard. It’s in those moments that we find out how far we can go, what we can come back from.

 It doesn’t matter how many times we’re knocked down. It doesn’t matter how long we stay down, as long as we get back up. No one finds personal satisfaction without failing at some point.

 I’m so thankful that my friend encouraged me to not give up. I love writing too much to let go. And maybe this time, the pie I’ll eat will be apple.

So whether you’re riding high on success or struggling in a valley so dark you can’t see the light of day, I encourage you to remember that we’re all human, that we all make mistakes, and one of the most important things we can do is come alongside one another to help each other get back up.

By day, Elora is a stay-at-home mom who enjoys reading, running and exploring Southern California with her family. By night, she is a super hero (or maybe villain), doing good (and maybe a bit of evil) in the worlds of her imagination. You can usually find her with a cup of coffee and a book in hand. And while she enjoys baking the occasional goodie, you generally will not find her cooking, as she finds it a chore.

Redemption is her first novel. She has a few more in the works.

Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Goodreads ~ Amazon author page

Tuesday Takeover: Writing as a Career by Rita Stradling

Is it okay to treat writing as a career (even if you’re not making a living)?

I can’t speak for everyone’s experience, but as a self published author, I often find a pressure to always give an impression of success. Yet, in the years since I published my first novel, self doubt frequently rides along with me as an unwanted passenger. It lingers in so many spaces, an invisible specter that as a self-respecting writer I probably shouldn’t acknowledge. Even now as I’m attempting to legitimize feeling insecure as a writer, I feel pressure to reassure you of my successes (but don’t worry, I won’t). For this guest blog post that Sarah so kindly invited me to write, I want to shine a light on some of the questions that have plagued me along my journey, and likely other writers as well.

What if the outside world doesn’t consider me a professional?

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

So, I realized something recently, often people take it personally when I tell them I have to prioritize writing over social activities. This seems a little odd to me because, say, if I had a job scrubbing messages off public restroom stalls, and my friend asked me to lunch and I responded, “Sorry, no, someone wrote: ‘call Rita for a good time’ on the right-most stall and I have to scrub it clean.” I’d expect my friend would say, “Oh, no problem, next time.” But, say instead, I say, “Sorry no, I have to write.” That’s when I get that look. You might know the look, but in case you don’t, it’s halfway between ‘you’re just making an excuse not to hang out with me’ and ‘I’m not saying writing isn’t a real job because I don’t want to be rude.’

But, let’s be honest here, what every writer at every level knows is the biggest thing that writing takes is time, lots of time.

Should my quality be judged on my success?

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

– Ella Fitzgerald

I’m pretty sure that a writing career feels basically the same as any other career in the arts, in that you have a choice: get a job making what someone else wants, or leak your heart, dreams and talent through your own creation and wait for the world to judge it. Unfortunately, being an artist of any art form can be discouraging when you’re not (yet) successful. Van Gough is an extremely talented example of this; he was an artist with a family already in the art scene who was rejected by critics and the ‘who’s who’ of his time, all of which sent him into an infamous depression. Meaning, an artist’s life at any caliber can be very discouraging when the gatekeepers don’t legitimize them. Yet, thank goodness, we live in an incredible and unique time where art (including books) no longer needs to be first approved of by ‘the professional elite’ to be accessible to the masses. The downside to this, however, is that we are swimming in a much bigger pool, all trying to climb our way to the hot tub. So, while we might have a go-around when it comes to the gate-keepers, quality doesn’t always mean success.

How fast should an author be successful to legitimize their work?

I’ve learned that making a ‘living’ is not the same thing as ‘making a life’.

― Maya Angelou

So, I don’t know how fellow authors feel about it, but when I finally began breaking even, it felt like a pretty big deal for me. That is to say as an self-published author who has to pay her own support staff, i.e. cover maker, editor, promotion companies, etc, breaking even felt like I was finally getting somewhere. But, it definitely didn’t sound like a big deal when I told my relatives, “Guess what, I can finally afford to pay everyone who works for me without dipping into savings!” But, when you think about a lawyer or a doctor (or a small business, which a self-pubbed author basically is), when they’re finally breaking even, as in paid off and no longer depending on loans, that’s a really big deal for them too. Anyway, my point is, being successful in any career isn’t instant, so why do we expect it to be with writing?

If you’re not getting paid (much, or even at all), is writing a profession or a hobby?

I always treated writing as a profession, never as a hobby. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.

– Laurell K. Hamilton

What is the difference between a profession and a hobby?
If we get to the nitty-gritty Merriam-Webster definition, a career is: “a job or profession that someone does for a long time.” And a job is: “the work that a person does regularly in order to earn money.”

And, the definition of a hobby is: “a pursuit outside one’s regular occupation engaged in especially for relaxation.”

Which does your writing sound more like?

How much work does a novel take? I’ve heard some authors say years, but as I’m using myself as an example, let’s for the point of this piece say months. And, is that work hard? Definitely. Is that work fun? Absolutely. But, is that work always fun? Um, definitely not. Is it always relaxing? Are you kidding? Nope.

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and realize that I have to work on a project, and even though underneath it all I love writing, I’d rather bang my head repeatedly against a wall. Do I work on that project? Yes, yes I do. Why? Because even before I made a penny, I decided that writing is my career and it will continue to be until it stops being my passion. Does that make me crazy? Probably, but I’m in good company ;).

What if I’m continuously overlooked and rejected?

“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it”

― Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson says it way better than I ever could, but, many agree that luck is a huge part of success in any career. A good example of this is fantasy writer Christopher Paolini, who published his book Eragon ‘privately’ when he was barely more than a kid and promoted it by going bookstore to bookstore in a medieval storyteller costume. While book sales were good, his family put so much into his book that they had to consider selling their house near the end of the year. Luck stepped in and the stepson of author Carl Hiaasen bought the book while on vacation, loved it, and the rest is internationally bestselling literary history (You can read more about his story here: Link). Was Paolini’s book different before luck stepped in? Probably not. Did he treat his work like a career before he was successful? Yeah, he did. Was it a career before he was successful? That’s up to you to decide. But, I think that yeah, it was, just as much as it was after success.

What if it really is a question of quality?

The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.

― Robert Cormier

Let’s talk about the elephant in this guest blog post: There’s the whole: “but what if I actually do suck?” Question.

And, it’s a pretty good question, because somebody might think your (or my) writing stinks (hint, hint: 65,000 people gave Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone a one star review on Goodreads, so even if you write better than J.K. Rowling, some people STILL might think you stink ;). Whatever, screw it. Make it your career anyway. No matter what, whether you start out as the best writer or the worst, you’ll be a better after working hard at it for 5,000 hours.

So, I’ve tried to use quotes from smart people along with my words to basically affirm this:

yep, it’s our careers, keep chugging along :).

Want to know more about me?

My Bio:

Rita Stradling is the author of The Deception Dance series, the Dakota Kekoa series and The Fourteen Day Soul Detox Novella Serial. She has a BA in Art History and a particular love for modern and medieval art.

Rita lives with her husband and son in Northern California.

She has an insatiable novel addiction and mostly reads young adult and adult: romance, paranormal, urban fantasy and high fantasy.

My Links:

My Website
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube
Goodreads Author Page
Amazon Author Page