"" Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Thursday, August 23, 2018

On Being a Modern Writer

 The Writing Academy

Nobody will ever miss something you didn't write.


It's the harshest reality a writer must face. 










It's not like it's easy, after all.



But that's not all there is to it. 



You and only you.



Is it important you get it all down?




It's somehow innate in a writer's makeup.





Sure, it's rewarding - and often fun. 

That’s if readers find you – and like what you do…


You need patience, and to be a little bit crazy.

Keep Writing! 

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Always Write For Your Readers




It could be that, during the writing and editing process, some degree of self-discipline is required to fulfil the objective of writing a book that people actually want to read - and will enjoy reading.

My preferred approach is to write quickly and edit methodically later.






When writing your first draft quickly and without too much agonising, try not to get sidetracked into overdeveloping ideas that are not pertinent to your purpose. Stay as focused, in other words, as you can on the intention of your writing.


















Keep Writing!
Rob Parnell's Writing Academy

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Don't Think, Write

Ever have those days when you’re muzzy and unmotivated? 

You know how it is.





What do you do when this happens to you?


After all, if you're not writing, you're not working.


What's the solution?



They don't need inspiration or a good idea.

They don't even need to be in the right mood.






Best thing is that this wellspring of ideas never runs out.



So next time you're struggling, don't think, just write.


Great idea, right?



My problem is that I always have too much to do.


Nothing would happen unless I wrote.


All these things I give deadlines.

Otherwise I probably wouldn't do it...

Actually that's not true.

I feel the urge to write pretty much all the time.


Take this article for instance.


I thought maybe I could write an article about that.



But I couldn't think of anything.


An hour later and this is the result.


Now surely if I can do that...

...you can too!

Especially if you heed the advice in the title!

Keep Writing!

Friday, July 13, 2018

The Book Inside of You

Do you ever have those days when you don't know what to write about?
And worse, do those days turn into weeks and months, even years?

You're not alone.
I know this for a fact because people email me about it all the time.

According to most surveys, 80% of people feel they have a writer inside, someone who could - and thinks they should - write a book at some point in their lives.
80% is a huge statistic.

So huge that it's the kind of percentage that would have marketers foaming at the mouth!
But real life shows that only around 5% actually get around to any kind of serious writing in their lifetimes - and only around 1% of that 5% end up getting paid to do it.

That's why, in marketing terms, writing remains a niche - one of those nebulous terms that means 'so specialized' as to be largely irrelevant to modern demographics.

Clearly that doesn't quash the urge to write for you and me.
(And yes, “me” is grammatically correct here.)
But this issue of "I want to write but I can't think what to write about" remains for many a point of frustration for much of their lives.

The feeling is usually caused by having too high expectations of ourselves.

We tend to think that our words and sentences should be good and wonderful the moment we put them down on paper.
The beginner can feel immense distress after writing a paragraph and then realizing it's either awful, or nothing like the thoughts they wanted to transfer.

We should take comfort in the fact that this phenomenon is as true for seasoned writers as it is for the beginner!

Removing the barrier between our thoughts and their expression is something a writer may take a lifetime to learn – and, even then, never quite thoroughly master.

I think it was Evelyn Waugh who said that he found writing in his old age much harder than in his youth because the more he tried to get down precisely what he meant, the more laborious the process seemed to become.
A few throw away lines that may have sufficed as a younger man became pages of exposition that delved further and deeper into delicate nuances that seemed almost impossible for him to capture.

Churchill expressed the same concerns as he aged - and his later works became longer and denser.

One of my intentions with The Writing Academy is to short circuit this dilemma.

Because I believe that our subconscious minds have a much better grasp on writing, story, theme, structure and style than our conscious, rational minds.

This is one of the reasons why thinking too much doesn't seem to help us write.
Thinking is thinking.

But writing is writing.
And the only way to solve a writing problem - a block or a lack of ideas - is to write.

I've noticed this over and again.
That if you switch off your inner critic somehow - ignore it, or deliberately suppress it - and just write the first thing that comes into your head, then the subconscious somehow kicks in and takes over.

I've also noticed that if you write every day, the subconscious can actually guide you through an entire novel.
I used to wonder how I could hold an entire 150,000 word opus in my mind - until I realized it can't, and doesn't.

It's the subconscious that does this job. It holds the novel in a hidden databank. And if you're true to yourself - and have an objective moral compass - then your storylines will surface naturally.

Writing professors will often tell you about their favorite novelists. Those who've managed to weave profound themes into their work - and still created superb prose to house them.

But this is to misunderstand the process a writer uses.

I've yet to see a writer interviewed who will say they had all their themes - even subject matter - worked out before they started writing.
This is not how it works.
Themes, indeed stories, characters, and plots are subconscious manifestations of the writer's mindset and attitudes that come through the work, rather than being deliberately planned and executed to any formula.

Writing is not a mysterious process that defies explanation.

It just happens if we trust the process, and don’t overthink it.
This is good.
It means that all of us can do it - if we let go of preconceptions or expectations of our abilities.

Let go, and write.

Don't think, write.

That is, to me, what my Writing Academy is all about.

Thanks for reading.
Keep Writing! 

Rob Parnell
Your Success is my Concern

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Cash Management for Writers

(Irrelevant picture but at least the copyright is mine!) 

I'd be lying if I told you that being a full-time writer is all wine and roses and endless days of blissful creativity - especially at the start.

It's rarely that for most. If you look at the lives of the great writers throughout history, they invariably grew familiar with the pain of rejection, the fear of failure, and often the gnawing ache of poverty.

These days poverty is a relative term. If you have a computer and an Internet connection, you're by no means poor, no matter how you may feel.

Recently I spent some time in Luxor, Egypt. There I met many people who thought regularly going without food for a few days was normal; people who thought you were unimaginably rich if you could afford to catch a plane; people who dreamed of one day owning a mobile phone.

These people were by no means peasants, they were town dwellers with jobs and apartments who, despite living without electricity, managed to be smart, clean, multi-lingual and law-abiding.   

Until fairly recently, the idea of writing for a living was out of the question for most. Until the advent of mass communications, the only way to write full time was to either have a rich benefactor, have tenure at a university, or to be a monk! The idea that a full-time income could be made from writing is really only something that's become common since the 1950s - actually since the proliferation of TV, movies, newsprint, radio and now, of course, the Internet.

These days your success as a writer is inevitable if you stick with it.

No matter how bad things seem, your situation will get better with persistence.

Knowing how to deal with little money, at least at first, is important.

First of all, stop worrying about the bills. Easier said than done I know. But the fact is there's no such thing as debtor's prison anymore - and you're not going to be put behind bars for credit card debt, bank overdrafts, or even unpaid utility bills.

Punishment these days is meted out through lack of credit which, if you're poor, seems unfair but is actually the best thing for you. When you owe lots of money, the last thing you want is to have to pay back even more.

Here's how I made it through some lean times at the beginning of my creative career.

Twenty years ago I accepted that I was hopelessly in debt and I was going to have to take responsibility for the fact I was crap with money. I bought all the wrong things, spent way too much on hedonistic activities and never seemed to earn enough to pay back what I owed.

But I realized too that I was not unique. Most people live with permanent debt - and the financial institutions want you to live this way because that's how they make a profit. If everyone was rich and had enough money to buy things outright and never get into debt, the whole of Western civilization would collapse - as it almost did during the recent global economic crisis because too much debt was going unpaid.

When I was poor I deliberately changed the way I thought about bills by making a slight shift in my word use. I picked the word "creditors" to describe those I owed money. It's a nice-sounding word: it sounds positive, not one that fills you with foreboding.

Then I made a list of all the outstanding bills, debts, credit card balances, mortgage repayments, etc.  I was stunned and sickened when I added it all up.

Then I listed the debts in order of importance. This is something you have to decide for yourself. The most demanding creditor is not always the most urgent. Utility bills are normally the most pressing - to keep power flowing into the house.

Cell charges not so crucial because you don't really need a phone and getting cut off will probably help you in the long run. Lawyers, doctors and other freelance professionals can charge obscenely large fees but courts are not always sympathetic to their pleas for payment. And often, by the time things get into collection, the urgency is usually over. You just get black marks against your credit – which you should see as a good thing because it will stop you from borrowing even more. 

When I'd written up my list, I decided which bill I was going to pay next, when I had some money. If it was a large bill, I would part pay it: sometimes half, sometimes a tenth. It's hard for someone to sue you - or pass the debt on to collection - if you're making small part payments.

A judge will throw a case out of court if you're paying a creditor even the tiniest amount per week. In most jurisdictions the same is true of rent and mortgages. If you pay a little - and inform the creditor in writing of your intentions, there's really not much they can do in the short term. You're trying - and that's all a court could enforce anyway.

This tactic is not for the impatient. Though I barely had enough to eat and drink for about a month at one point, paying a bit back all the time felt enormously liberating.

Two years later all the debts were gone and I had learned one thing very well: if you don't spend more than you earn, you'll always be better off!

I could write a book about debt management and financial prosperity. Perhaps I will, even though many have been written already! I recommend you read some if you're not very good with money, or if you believe you don't have enough to live on.

It's often the case that simply taking the time to properly manage your finances - like a business - will make you feel more prosperous.

After all, most businesses operate utilizing far more debt than many of us can comprehend. There's apparently no shame in a corporation using billions of dollars of borrowed money to increase its profits so, when you go a little too far into the red, just think of yourself as doing the same.

But remember to keep working and taking writing jobs to bring more money in.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

There's Always Tomorrow

Writing is a vocation. 

You may have to keep reminding yourself of this. Especially when you want everything - money, writing projects, publishing success - to go faster. 

I read a guy's blog this week where he talked about burn-out. He was so determined to get a novel finished he wrote 16 hours a day for about three weeks. He said that suddenly he couldn't make out the words on the screen. He was looking at a foreign language and he realized his brain had shut down. 

The experience frightened him so much that he stopped writing and suffered a long period - over six months - of angst over what had happened.

For a long time he was too afraid to start writing again for fear that his mind would play this trick on him again.

Luckily that's not happened to me yet. Sounds awful.

The worst thing that happened one year was that I got one of those humps on my right wrist - apparently they're caused by hitting the keyboard too hard for too long. It took a few weeks of gentle typing for it to go down.

It didn't hurt. I just looked deformed for a while. A friend suggested hitting it with a book - he said he'd heard that was the way to make them go back down. Not being a fan of pain, I declined his offer to fix it and trusted nature instead.

I've never had it again - since I started using laptops.

I guess the point is that you can just push yourself too hard sometimes. I know that, say, Olympic athletes need to train for hours every day. I know that soldiers train hard every day to reach optimal strength, mindset and efficiency.

But what about more cerebral pursuits?

Clearly it's possible for the brain to be overstimulated - leading to mental breakdowns and, at the very least, stress.

Most writers agree that bouts of excessive writing can be physically draining. Even the most prolific writers don't recommend more than four or five hours max a day. It's fairly well accepted that much more and you're really in no condition to give it your best.

As writers we must learn patience.

Waiting on publishers is challenging. It's the main topic of conversation at the writer's groups I attend. It's also one of the reasons I recommend self-publishing. Even if only to act as a stopgap, so writers have at least a chance of making money from our work while waiting around for agents and publishers to take notice of us.

Plus, increasingly, the publishing world requires 'proof' that readers want our work. What better way to showcase our novels, books and writing than on Amazon? We can get feedback, reviews and testimonials - not to mention actual sales of our work to readers.

Plus of course there's the added benefit of feeling like a published author - which will seriously help your self esteem and hopefully boost your commitment to writing regularly.

Because writing needs to become a habit, especially if you want to one day do it full time - the dream!

You need to pace yourself. Live well but healthily. Keep your moral, mental and physical strength up and commit to writing every day.

In this age of 'I want it now', it may seem frustrating to have to wait for anything. But for the writer, this is often the reality.

Fact is, it's always been this way. Nothing's changed.

Except now we can at least publish ourselves on the Net while we're waiting for the call from Random House or Harper Collins. (Anytime, guys - honestly, I'm here all day, just waiting!)

And did I mention publishing with Amazon is free?

Plus you keep all the rights?

No contracts, no catches and no fees.

Just a professional platform to showcase your work.

Oh and, in case you're interested, you make money too!

Monday, June 18, 2018

Those Who Can Do, Those Who Can't, Criticise...

Recently, one of my esteemed students wrote me a letter - yes, an actual piece of paper with handwriting on it - gasp!

She thanked me for one of my courses that she was working through at home. She said she liked my 'metaphysical' approach to writing because it helped her move out of a block she'd been having.

I've never really thought about my instruction being 'metaphysical' to be honest. It's not meant to be. A better term might be 'holistic', in that I see writing and the writer as equally in need of guidance and advice.

The writer, to me, is inseparable from the writing. You can't be a good, honest and effective writer if you don't aspire to be a good, honest and effective person. If that's metaphysical, then so be it!

But you don't have to be perfect.

In the same way as your writing doesn't have to be perfect. What's perfection anyway but an intellectual tool we use as a benchmark?

Perfection is relative.

The newbie may feel sheer joy at a piece of average writing - infused with that rush we all feel at times at our accomplishments.

But a writer with years of experience may still cringe at something she's written when others see nothing but genius.

It's all relative.

We each must aspire to our own concept of perfection - but learn to be satisfied when 'enough is enough'.

I've never know a decent writer who didn't think that something in their work couldn't be improved.

Famously, Fitzgerald once broke into his publisher's office at three in the morning and crawled inside the printing galleys, pulling out letters, rearranging the text of his novel - the day the book was going to press!

Okay, he was probably drunk. Fitzgerald often was. But most writers can relate to this kind of obsessive need to 'fix' their own writing until it shines.

Talking of obsession and the need for perfection, Steve Jobs is sorely missed - not least at Apple. His kind of focus is rare - more especially because it was justified. A lot of people - artists especially  - may be precious and difficult to work with - but not all of them are so right!

But maybe they are - in their own way.

May be we don't give enough credit to those 'control freaks' who strive for perfection and, like Steve Jobs apparently, make life hard for those around them. 

I guess that's the great thing about being a writer. You are in control - most of the time. Your world is exactly as it should be, within the confines of your pages.

It's one of the reasons I've never really understood the need for criticism. It's too easy for others to find the flaws in other's work. It's destructive - not only creatively but personally too.

A critic can crush a writer's spirit irreparably but... to what end?

Also, I've never known a writer to improve dramatically as a result of criticism. Quite the opposite.

It's encouragement that helps improve a writer. Because when writers feels good about what they do, they seem to become more aware of the flaws themselves - and seek to better their work independently.

Criticism closes a writer down more often than not, forcing them to consider giving up the whole thing - as was probably the critic's intention.

No, we should always strive to 'lift up' an artist - to help them feel 'enlightened'. Inspiration comes from a feeling of transcendence. Criticism can only drag us down to earth and make us feel inferior, misguided and misunderstood.

How would God have felt - if there's any such thing as a deity - if some critic was looking over her shoulder, pointing out all her mistakes as she created the universe?

Maybe she would have scrapped the whole idea of creation - and taken up some other activity like playing atom solitaire or cosmic cloud busting.

Where would be then?

I'm not being as flippant as you might assume.

I really do think that artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians - even inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs - should be encouraged without question. Because true creators know the flaws in their designs better than anyone. They really don't need others to point them out!

But I guess it's the way of the world.

The ninety ten rule. Ten percent of us want to change things, create new possibilities and understand the true meaning of our existence.

The other ninety percent just want to sit back and bag.

To be realistic, they say.

Well, if being realistic means that nothing should ever change or that none of us should aspire to perfection or dedicate ourselves to the attainment of truth or beauty or enlightenment, then I'd rather be called anything but realistic!

So I don't really mind being thought of as metaphysical - as long as it doesn't marginalize what I do.

I try to speak to everyone, not just to those who will listen.

But isn't that the point of art, of good writing, of transcendent music, film and whatever?

To create something that speaks to us all?

I hope so.

Have a great holiday this year - and give some thought to how you might improve the world - especially if there were no such things as critics, naysayers and other members of your friends and family!

Seriously, have fun - and be good, at whatever you do.

The Writing Academy
