Okay, I've been tagged with a new meme called Roar for Powerful Words by Melanie. She gets a nifty award for taggin me and since I loves me some awards, here's what I gotta do.
1. link back to original tagger (done!)
2. list three things that I think are necessary for good and powerful writing. (done!)
3. tag five more people via comment. (to be done.)
Oh goody. Another list.
1. Curiosity: Do I need to explain this? To me, this is truly the key to what makes me a writer. Curiosity is what drives me forward. People always ask creative sorts "where do you get you ideas" and the answer for me is simple. I find them everywhere. Curiosity is the reason I have a bookcase filled with esoteric subjects. You can find everything from ancient Japanese myths to books on tropical fish.
Take for example a children's space fantasy I've been playing with. I don't really need to know everything about our solar system in order to write Planet Hoppers, but the book has sparked my interest and find myself reading endlessly about gaseous giants and orbits and suns and moons. All this reading has given me new ideas and enriched the story.
2. Perseverance: I know of some writers who are taken on by the first or second agent they query and sell their book to the first editor who reads the manuscript. But we all know that this is a rarity. Publication isn't a sprint but a marathon. You can cross the finish line by outlasting your competition. If you give up during the process of learning your craft, you'll never find out how far you can take it. It's easy to say that you shouldn't get disheartened by all the rejection that goes with being a writer, but in reality, this is a bitter pill. You must have some sort of love for writing or it simply isn't worth it.
3. Insight: If I don't have something to say, then why even bother? Writing should illuminate something. You need a new way to tell a story or a fresh perspective or an original character that reveals something about the human condition. We always hear "show don't tell", but writing really is about showing something.
Okay, now I need to tag some folks and I will. I will. I think I'm going to tag Tori, Kristine, Carrie, AJ, and Lori. Play if you want to or ignore if you want to. Now I need to go polish something for the kittehs. I've been working too much to have new kitteh posts and I need to rebuild my Friday kitteh writings. Believe it or not, they take some time and thought to draft.
4 comments:
Shall I consider myself pre-tagged? :)
I like your big three. Curiosity is one that I wouldn't think is obvious, but that IS a big part of "where do you get your ideas from?" Very cool!
And I can believe that Kitteh Fridays take some planning. Even my Fridays take planning, and I don't have to find pictures.
(Even Anachronistic Holmes takes some planning, and that's just 140-character (not word) updates....)
I am patient for teh kittehs. :)
Thanks, I'll have to think of something.
I'm pretty sure the kittehs take a lot of time. What you do with them is sheer brilliance.
Hmm...Think. Think. Think. (We're watching My Friends Tigger & Pooh.)
I love Curiosity. I got a bonus at work this week and set aside a small amount to blow. I ended up at Borders and bought myself a clearance world atlas ($14 - originally $50!) and two books on Egypt. Curiosity. Love that.
You've inspired me to get off my butt & work today. Well, stay on my butt since I'm already at the computer, but you know what I mean. :)
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