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It is just pebble by pebble by pebble by pebble. I write one sentence until I am happy with it until I go on to the next one and write that one until I am happy with it. And I look at my paragraph and if I am not happy with that I’ll write the paragraph until I’m happy with it and then I go on this way. And, of course, even writing this very slow way, one does have to go back. One does start off on the wrong foot sometimes and a whole scene has to be chopped and you have to start over again. 

Read more at AdviceToWriters.com by clicking here.

I am not a writer. Not yet. That is not to say I don’t write, nor that it would be unfair of me to say that I am a writer. But I am not “there” yet. I’m getting there, and I take heart in the fact that, while I’m not “there” yet, I am moving in the correct direction, I am learning the lessons I need to as a writer, and that I am recognising the issues and mistakes I make myself and attempting to rectify them. My trouble may well be a lack of peers to judge my work for me properly, but there is little I can do about that. I must stop trying to rush myself because of my own mortality. It’ll come or it won’t, and rushing it won’t help none.

Two days ago, there was Chekhov’s razor. 

Yesterday there was Borges. 

For another metaphor, Zadie Smith’s scaffolding: 

Tis first evoked in her essay about the antipodal approaches that Barthes and Nabokov advocate: ‘Reading is creative!’ Barthes insists. ‘Yes, but the writer creates’, replies Nabokov, smoothly, and turns back to his notecards. She builds upon the books-as-houses metaphor in That Crafty Feeling, where she dispenses, qua Derrida, some excellent advice about writing novels: If the right to a secret is not maintained then we are in a totalitarian space. 

This is a dilemma every writer faces: how does one read? With your spine, Nabokov would say, with your multifold senses- visual, auditory, neural- on alert. Observe, exult, don’t document, for that has already been done for you. Bah, snorts Barthes, with your brain, a book is but a tissue of signs; collect and weave them you must.  The tension is resolved with Kundera: great novels are always a little more intelligent than their authors. 

Full essay here. 

I’m usually not a person to give writingadvice but I had been stuck for a long while writing a story. I kept noticing that most of my characters kept going back to things in their past. So I decided to go back 20 years and start the story from there. And it’s been going a thousand times better.

Looking for someone to proofread it first. Any takers?

I’m a writer. At least I like to call myself one. I’ve posted some ramblings a few weeks back and have been writing on a daily base since. My dream is to one day become a professional writer and make a living from that. (It probably won’t happen).

I speak dutch in my daily life, yet I write in English. There’s one important reason for this. The story and dialogue feels more natural in english. That and english gives me a wider audiene. I am concidering placing the entire first chapter of my work online to get, let’s be honest about that, people interested. However, not being a native speaker of the english language brings along one big problem. My english is awkward. It might not be obvious while I’m writing small pieces of blog, as I do practice a lot to get better. But when writing a huge amount of text such mistakes tend to hide a lot better.

My girlfriend, who is a native speaker of the language has helped me out in the past. And she will end up doing that in the future as well. However, the biggest problem is, she dislikes reading. For most of us, I’m guessing for the majority of my followers, reading and fantasy go hand in hand. When you read you don’t see the text, you see the world described in those words. She has a lot more trouble immersing herself into my or anyone’s world.

So to make this work for myself, I would like to start looking for a writingpartner.
There are a few requirements to this:

1. You have to love writing and reading.
2. Your english should be better then mine. (Preferably native)
3. You need to be a grammar nazi.
4. You need to be interested in fantasy and preferably write that as well.

In return I’ll do anything in my power to help you out with your writings. I’ll read what you wrote and give an honest, unbiased opinion. I don’t sugarcoat, but I don’t expect people to do that for me either.

Anyone interested?