WRITE don't WHINE!

Sometimes folks ask me to write an article on how to go about writing a book, how to get published or how to get an agent.

This is when I get downright serious and tell them, WRITE don’t WHINE!!

Both words have five letters. Both begin with W, end with E and have an I right in the middle. That makes them shirt tail kin but it doesn’t make them blood brothers by any means.

Someone once said that writing is about five percent inspiration and 95 percent perspiration. It’s not an easy job and it takes dedication and discipline…which are two D words that both have ten letters, start with a D and define the writing job pretty good.

With that in mind, whining gets nothing done. You can do it all day and at the end of the day you’ve got a blank page and a frustrated feeling that even chocolate won’t cure. Whereas if you spend the day writing, it might not be perfect, but hey, you’ve got something on that page that you can rework. And who knows it could be the next New York Time’s best seller when you finish the story. The great Nora Roberts said in a conference I attended that you can’t fix anything on a blank page but if you write every day, you will have some raw material to work with.

Put aside how to get published or how to get an agent. If you don’t have a finished book, you might as well be whistlin’ “Dixie” in the wind. Finish that book. Then it’s time to think about publishers and/or agents.

I agree with that person who said that about inspiration and perspiration but I’ll go a step further and say, “It’s five percent inspiration and 95 percent ‘sit your butt in the chair and don’t let anything distract you,’ and that is where those two D words come into play.”

So I get up every morning and look at the woman in the bathroom mirror and remind myself that today I will not whine, today I will write. It’s called practicing what I preach and preaching what I practice.

It’s tough love that I give to myself and to those who ask me my advice. But at the end of the day, when I’ve got words on the computer screen, it’s a heck of a lot more profitable than whining.

So go write, my aspiring friends.

Which brings me to a story. I’ll make it short. Several years ago I received a letter from a group who was trying to start a writer’s club. I was so excited that they recognized me as an author until I looked closely at the heading on the letter: TO ALL EXPIRING AUTHORS!

I asked Mr. B exactly how dead I had to be to join the club.

My advice is write, don’t whine, and when you finish that book, be sure to spell check it before you hand it off to someone for consideration!!