What do writers need? Lots of things, actually.
For instance we need good story ideas. We all have snippets of stories or characters floating around in our heads. Nothing concrete, mind you. Just little pieces here, there and yon. But you’d like to have the one unique story that would take your book to the top of every best seller list and be remembered as a classic. Like Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird.
Alas, that doesn’t happen very often.
You need the ability to write the book once you have that perfect storyline. Some of this comes naturally to us. We were either born a storyteller OR we want to be a writer so badly we devour every writing book we can get our hands on, take every online class out there and attend conferences, etc. until we learn the craft.
By the way, it takes some of us YEARS longer than others.
As with anything worth doing well, you have to be too stubborn to give up. You’ll get rejections, possibly TONS of them, but you can’t stop writing. What would you do with yourself if you stopped?
Mostly you need a solid group of people whom you trust to help you down the road. Other writers who know exactly how it feels to spend hours by yourself, ignoring the dirty house, the piles of laundry, the favorite TV show, your friends and family and even sleep in order to meet the latest deadline. People who have been in your shoes.
Luckily I have a group like this and I’m looking forward to seeing them this Saturday. When you’re down, stuck on a scene or plot problem, questioning how to properly punctuate a sentence, you have these people to hold your hand. To give you the boost you need to go back to the lonely keyboard. To help you reconnect with your characters so that keyboard isn’t quite so lonely. They’re also the best people to help you celebrate your successes and know what you mean when you say you’ve been dancing on the ceiling. 😉
I suppose the whole point of this post is to let you know that I’m anxiously looking forward to my writers ‘fix’ this weekend. See you there!
Smart Women 