Sunday, January 17, 2016

One Bit of Advice

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a panel put on as part of the Calliope Writing Course.

This is a no-holds-barred bare-knuckle writing course, put on by best-selling author Angie Fenimore and her husband Michael Sheen, that will strip away everything that's holding you back as a writer.


I attended a panel that they put on. After almost an hour of instruction from the panel, Michael ended it with this:

If you were to give one piece of advice . . . to these young budding writers, what would it be?



TJ Da Roza (editorial director for Jolly Fish Press) - Just write.

Lisa Mangum (acquisitions editor at Shadow Mountain Press) - This is the advice that I alway share from my good friend Rick Walton . . . quit. But if you can't, do the work.

Christopher Loke (executive editor and publisher for Jolly Fish Press) - Always be willing and ready to accept that your writing sucks. Once you acknowledge that, then you can improve.

Candace Thomas (young adult fantasy author) - Don't keep rewriting the first three chapters over and over again. Please just finish the book, because if you don't know how it ends, you don't know how to fix the problems. Just keep going. I know you want to re-write, but just keep going until you know the ending.

Johnny Worthen (author extraordinaire and tie-dye enthusiast) - 1) Finish what you start. 2) You can fix anything but a blank page. 3) Write your first draft as fast as you humanly can.

Bridget Cook-Burch (NY Times Bestselling author and Transformational Speaker) - Yes, you may suck as a writer, but you were meant to shine.

Heather Rubert (acquisitions editor at Future House Publishing) - I'm going to encourage you all to commit blasphemy, write in books . . . if you like something mark it. Pick it apart and see how it works.

This list is what we call a teaser. In the coming weeks, I'll add my own thoughts to each of these. Stay tuned!



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