A little more about writing...

No two authors are the same. REMEMBER THAT!
Do not compare yourself to what someone else can do.

I've run across more than one "author's blog" saying pretty much the same thing.

*Is writing a long grueling road?
Yes. Anyone can write a manuscript. It doesn't mean that it's done.
*Do you have to be "born" with the gift?
I don't know. It's hard to say. Some just happen to find it sooner than others. As much as I loved writing as a kid, (thanks to the non-supportive teachers I had), I hated to write. I didn't find I could do what I could until I was in my early thirties.
*Do I need to write every day?
Why are you asking others what YOU should do? Writing is an art. If it comes to you, don't let that slip away. Here in the author world, we call that writer's block. Some blocks go away faster and some tend to linger for awhile. (That's why we're so insane)
*Do I need to know what to write about?
Eh, a general idea is helpful. If you write about your basic thoughts, so what? Maybe something will come to you. Again, I'm NOT you! For me, it could be one sentence someone says, a nagging thing that was said in the past and I just remembered it as I crawl into bed, it could be one word, and entire story will spark. You can't make fire if you there's no spark.
*What I have, doesn't make any sense.
Maybe it's not supposed to. I don't know. Again, I'm not you. Maybe it'll make sense later. I had a saga just like that. I started writing my thoughts and then, boom, there was a plot.
*My first draft sucks. I'm a horrible writer.
Really? Practice never makes perfect. Practice always makes you better, but never perfect. Perfection means there's nothing to change. There's always something to change when you write. That's what a first draft is, a first draft. It lets you see what could be added, taken out, or whatever. You're not going to turn in your first draft of a homework assignment without having it checked. Why would it be any different for a rough draft of a manuscript?
*Your hero or heroine, make them do the impossible.
Cough, cough. The stupidest shit I've ever read. If they are sitting in a classroom and a fire breathing dragon comes in, is that that realistic? And, I'm not saying to keep it realistic. If your book is about living with dragons, okay, than that's perfectly acceptable. However, if it's in today's age, what relevance is that for the main character to fight a dragon in the middle of a class? If the danger is not supposed to be there, don't add it. Don't go overboard on something that's not meant to be thrown overboard. If you talk about the main character battling through things that are unrealistic in the book, your readers may feel lost as to why you added them in there in the first place.
*A character popped up that wasn't supposed to.
Great! I sincerely mean that. That's great writing when the story is forming as you're writing it. Some writers go off outlines. I can't. Things happen to where it makes it nearly impossible to stick to the outline. So, I don't do outlines. I go off that one word, sentence, thought and run with it and can't finish it until it's complete. Since I do type so fast, and plug away at it, morning, noon and night, I have nothing to forget. But that is me. If an outline works for you, use it. There is nothing wrong with that.

*Your book should be great if you want to devote the time to write it.
Eh, WRONG! So wrong on so many levels. Great is left up to the person writing the story - YOU! You want to write about frogs, then write about it. It doesn't fascinate me, and most likely I'll never pick it up to read it. But that's only me. I'm one person. Who cares. What will draw people into your book, is writing about what means the most to you. Readers can see if you put your heart and soul into it. If you wrote something just for "fame", yeah, good luck. You'll get fame, but not the kind you were looking for.

*Writer's block has nothing to do with confidence, lack of story, or you lost your outline and you're lost.
Writer's block is your brain's way of telling you, you need to live life. Plain and simple. Remember, writing is art. After all, how did you get that idea? Each person is different in what it takes to remove writer's block. I had a killer idea for a story. I had twenty thousand words done in one day. Then POOF the story died. I set it aside, (I didn't forget about it), but I set it aside and worked on something else. I completed five other manuscripts. I took some time off, lived life, and POW, that one book, the story started talking again. Again, if I had drawn out an outline, the book would never of followed it. It went in a completely different direction than I had originally anticipated. I see it as that's how the book was meant to go.

*I get paid to edit. I can edit my own work. I don't see anything I've missed.
That's nice. There's only a select few in the world who can actually edit their own work. I am NOT one of them. Of course you wouldn't see anything you've missed. When we write, we *think* we have written something. When we go back through our own work, we *know* what the character is supposed to be doing. But did we (you) actually write that? Or, is it only that we *think* we wrote it because that's the way we know we wrote it? You want to be taken seriously? Think of writing as a hobby. You want to display your work to the world. (With the internet, that's easily possible). Would you display something you only half ass finished and say it was done? Oh, look, I restored a car from the ground up! It's worth thousands! But, it's only half way there. It still needs a paint job, and an engine, and oh, wheels. When in reality, you had just bought the car and added a new review mirror. It's something like that. No one is going to pay you for something that's not finished. (unless they know it's not and have to put their own money into making it fully functional.) But then, they own the car, not you. If you advertise that the car is "complete" and a buyer comes along, they'll laugh at you. Then, when you do pay to have all the work done, they won't even give you the time of day. They'll wonder what short cuts you took. You may be able to edit someone else's work, (like working on someone's car) but when it comes to your own, remember, the plumber who fixes everyone else's leak, has a leak at their own house.

*It's hard to be original. I want to write a story, but I saw someone else who already wrote it.
So? Every story has the same plot. Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. The end. It's how they meet, how they fall in love, and if they end up together, what makes it original. I'll go back to the subject I hate the most. Twilight. Whiny ass main character. However, girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. They get married. The end. The plots and twists, she had originality. I'll give her props on that. She had vampires to where they sparkled. (To me, that's stupid) However, it's original. She had it to where werewolves didn't just change in the presence of a full moon. (Good job) She took the basic, vampires (a mystical creature) meets werewolves (a mystical creature) interacts with humans and they all can live in somewhat harmony. (Great job) She did her job as a writer to take something old and make it new. A lot of people fell in love with the story line. (She did her purpose) A lot of people hated the way the characters took shape. (She did her job correctly) A lot of people loved the book. (Hence why it was made into movies) A lot of people hated the book. (So, they didn't like her writing style, so what?) What I give her credit for, she wrote a story to where you got lost in the plot. I personally think she continued to write because of that series. If it hadn't of grown, in all honesty, I don't think she would have continued to write. But, I'm not her, so I could be wrong. The difference between King and her, is King writes for the love. She writes for the fame and it does show in her work. She wrote Twilight for the love. She wrote whatever that name is for the fame. Look at the difference. One took off, and one sunk.

 *How do you plan around your work schedule to write?
One, I hardly sleep. I run two businesses, I'm a single mother, and I write. Sleep is not in my schedule. But sometimes my body has other plans. Second, I don't plan. I learned if you plan, always make sure you have a backup plan. And then another backup plan for that. Sometimes life gets thrown in the way. I hate when people say, if you want to do it, you'll do it, or you'll find an excuse. Sorry while I cough bullshit. I planned and wanted to get in a couple of hours writing tonight, but the death of a relative happen. I'm sorry, we can predict death? When you do get home, the last thing you want to do is sit in front of that computer screen. All you want to do is crawl into bed and cry. Life is one big excuse. Two words - shit happens. There may be times to when life is so full, the last thing you can do is sit at that computer. It doesn't mean that you're any less of a writer.

*I did my best today. I wrote X amount!
Great! My personal goal for myself, to always beat my personal best. If the most you've ever written is 500 words, great! Remember this, don't force the story with something the characters can't get their way out of. Yes, there have been a few works to where I forced the story and then it all flowed. There have been other times to where I tried to force the story and it was crap and I had to end up rewriting. You can't say you wasted time. You might have, you might not have. I forced a story within a story. What I did, I removed that second story, copied it into a new document and it became a brand new story. Each time will be different.

*They (other authors) say if I wrote over X amount, it's pure crap.
And they matter why? Who are they to judge? Maybe the work was just coming to you and you plugged away at it hardcore. Who cares what they say. Even if it was King saying it, which he has never said anything like that, who cares. Yes, he knows how to write. But that means he knows how to write how he knows how to write. He doesn't know how to write what you write or how you write it. Again, STOP comparing yourself to other writers. If a writer has to "belittle" in the way one writes, they don't know how to truly write.

*How come there are more challenges in the last book than the new one?
So? It means that you're growing as a writer to work through the challenges and not see them as challenges. Just because you don't see the challenges, don't ever let someone tell you that you're doing it wrong. I wrote Temporary Home in four days and was able to work through the challenges with ease, because I didn't see them as challenges. Just because another writer may see and know their own challenges, it doesn't mean that their challenges will be the same for you.

*Stop concentrating on word counts.
I go by if I've finished a chapter, or what I wanted the main character to accomplish. Who effing cares about word counts. When you concentrate on word counts, you lose track of what the characters are doing. Yes, I'm guilty of doing that. Yes, you'll see me post what my word count is daily (if I wrote that day). However, when I'm writing, I don't even look at that. Also, just because a writer writes 10K words in one day, they may realize that only 2K of them is usable and actually pertains.

*I write to write a series.
Great. I wrote Hidden Destiny in under 10 months. Book 10 took a year of going back and forth, trying to make the ending work. I have over fifteen revisions of that book. I rewrote it so often, I can't remember the original version. (I do have it saved somewhere in my files) You don't need to be young to start a series. Who cares if it takes you the rest of your life to finish it? I have one that I started and haven't finished. It eats away at me a little, but I know that the right moment in my life hasn't come for me to write about it. Ugh, lets go back to Twilight. She spent every waking minute writing that story. Who's to say the original draft wasn't half that size? And the editor helped her fill in the blanks? We will never know unless she tells or posts about it. When I wrote Hidden Destiny, I will say, that year was the hardest. Sleep? I maybe crashed for twelve hours a week. I spent days upon days writing, with no sleep, lots of coffee, and plugging away as fast as I could. It was my worst work. It needed a lot of help. Why? Because it was my first full work ever written. Now, that I've written as many as I have, my editor says he has a lot less revising to do. But, going back to editing, I said a lot less, it still needs revising.

*I don't like what I wrote.
Then why did you write it? If you don't like what you wrote, you really expect anyone else to like it? If I'm not comfortable with what I'm going to write, I don't write it. But, again, that's me. Go ahead and write it. If you don't like it, copy and past it into a new document and save it. It may come along at a later time and you don't have to rewrite what you've already written.

*I'm afraid that my work is going to fail.
And? Why did you start in the first place? Why do you do anything in the first place? You never know unless you try. I'm not going to give you some pep talk. When I first wrote Hidden Destiny, I learned who my real friends were and who were only riding the ride. Even if it does fail, who cares. You did what most have yet to accomplish, you wrote and finished a manuscript. If you don't have it edited professionally, please don't put it out there. Again, you wouldn't boast about a car you haven't completed. Don't do that with your manuscript if you haven't completed it.

This will be continued...
Life got in the way.