Not gonna lie, we might have had a tad too much fun with this one. This week the scribble were tasked with coming up with the ultimate self-help book for writers. Prepare yourself for some brazen prose, outright cheek and just a pinch of sage advice.
"It's shit" and other common phrases for writers
Have you slogged away at a piece into the ungodly hours, only to read it back, gritty eyes propped open with matchsticks, and exclaim those dreaded words? “It’s shit!”
The thing is, we're often uber critical of our own work. Maybe it's because we spend so long staring at it, or maybe it's because the first time someone else reads it, it feels a bit like you're handing your firstborn to someone who's notorious for dropping babies; sheer terror. Either way, I tend to think everything I've written is shit, especially if I'm given half a second too long with it, and I know many writers who are the same.
“It’s shit” and other common phrases for writers roots around under your bed, hauls out your writing insecurities and kicks them to the curb. Ready for a confidence boost and a reality check? This book has you covered.
Stop wishing it was longer!
Stop me if this sounds familiar: you're great with words, awesome with characters and you spin a good yarn, but you just can't write a full length novel. Or perhaps you find yourself having to stuff your narratives full of fluff to spin out the length like (in the words of a great man) butter scraped over too much bread.
This is the self-help book you need.
There's so much pressure on we writers to create full length novels. But perhaps your idea doesn't fit into that size box. And that's okay. Stop wishing it was longer! will help you figure out whether your narrative fits into micro, short, novella, novel or epic format, and then guide you along the road to making your peace with it. Remember, it's not the size that counts...
Feel The Fear and Write It Anyway
You know what you want to write, but there’s a problem - it’s going to be trite, cliched nonsense. Or it’s been done before. Or you can’t write at all. You don’t know why you ever bother trying, actually. It’s embarrassing that you ever called yourself a writer. Why don’t you just set fire to your laptop? You might as well, it would be better all round. In fact, who do you think you are, using words?
If any of the above sounds familiar, this book is for you. Learn how to silence your inner critic, swallow your fears, and get your stories out of your head and into print.
Stop Doubting Yourself and Get it Fucking Finished
If you're anything like me, you worry too much - and it's a burden. You start a project or a piece of writing and never finish it, because you get caught up worrying whether it's any good, or whether you've bitten off more than you can chew. So the piece gets abandoned and you find something new to try - and the cycle never ends.
You have to learn to simply stop caring so much. It doesn't matter if it's shit. It doesn't matter if you spend years writing it before it's complete. It doesn't matter if other people like it or if it turns out to be completely different to what you expected when you started.
What matters is that you stop doubting yourself and get it fucking finished.
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