January 26, 2013

Be a Provocateur!

Word of the Day
provocateur\proh-vah-kuh-TER\noun

: one who incites or stimulates another to action
I want to be a provocateur for new authors. My biggest desire in life is to *cause* someone to pick up their pen, laptop, computer, whatever means they prefer to use to write and to start writing. But it is not enough to write something as it is to own the writing. BE THE WRITER. Accept the title of AUTHOR and live that life style. 
It doesn't mean that you get to quit your day job. It just means that your day job isn't all that you are. You are a writer. You might work as a clerk or whatever to put food on the table until the writing does that for you.  This was the hardest thing I ever did was to embrace the title of Author and it never occurred to me to do so until one day I was asked "Oh so you are an author?" I stood their dumbfounded until the customer at my register who had read my unpublished work turned around to the gentleman and said "Oh yes, she is a an author!" 
From that day on I embraced that title and it changed my life. That customer was a dear friend Mary Angel and she was my provocateur. She stimulated me into action. I started to live like an author. My laptop was my tool. My words were my art. I am an author! 
If you have always wanted to be an author but let life get in the way, stop now and embrace your passion. Say it: I am an author! Live it: Be the author you have always wanted to be! Feel it: Let the word author seep through your body. Speak it: Tell people you are an author. Scream it out loud. Put it on your email and phone signature: Author.
Then go write something short and sweet. Something you can finish in one setting and post it for everyone to see. It can be one line, four lines, a paragraph or an entire story, just be sure you can finish it in one sitting. And don't forget to post it or be too embarrassed to post it. I want to read it! All kinds of people will want to read it. Take a chance. 
Then go out and be a Provocateur and inspire someone else to do the same!

 

January 5, 2013

Sometimes you have to stop and rewrite the story

Lately I have hated opening my manuscript and writing. The book is almost finished and I should be in push mode. You know, that time when the itch to write is so strong you cannot NOT write. Well I can so not write right now. I realize that I need to back peddle and rethink my story. I still need to head in the direction I have been working toward. It is "how" I get there that I am having trouble with. It is boring me to tears. This is not writers block. I can still write. I just don't like what I am writing lately. It needs more spicy, more action.
I have been bashing myself for not finishing the book, but now I am glad that I have held off instead of just writing crap to get the book done. I know I will appreciate this when the book is done, but right now it just sucks.
Perhaps I should work on something else for a few days. Get away from it all together. I will keep you posted.
#thewriterslife