Category Archives: The writing life

Negentropy and Writing

Do you recall one of your physics teachers mentioning the concept of entropy? Today I’d like to discuss its opposite, negentropy, and how that applies to writing.

Entropy depresses me. I dislike the idea that energy changes into less and less useful forms, that order becomes chaos, and that the universe eventually runs down and stops.

Negentropy seems more fun. While we all wait for the universe to wind down, we can take tiny chunks of it and turn chaos into order within those chunks.

I ran across this article by Dr. Alison Carr-Chellman where she explores the concept of negentropy as it applies to everyday things like cleaning your room or making your workplace run smoother. I wondered if her concepts could apply to writing fiction.

Writing, itself, epitomizes negentropy. The inputs—life experiences, a brain, and writing implements—get converted to a single output, fiction. Chaos becomes order.

But is your fiction-producing process smooth and efficient? Are you losing energy along the way? Think about achieving maximum output (published fictional stories) for minimum input (personal time and energy).

Dr. Carr-Chellman provides five steps for improving that efficiency (she calls it ‘minimizing energy loss’). I’ll discuss each as they apply to writing fiction.

1: Find the entropy. Think of the steps involved in getting to a published story. Which of those steps (examples: researching, editing) take the most time for you? Which do you put off or rush through (ex: scene setting, choosing a title) because you hate doing them? Which steps do you agonize over (ex: submitting, marketing) because you don’t understand them well?

2: Prioritize the losses. Identify the biggest entropy problems, so you tackle them first. Not only will this provide the best gains in efficiency, but your success will embolden you to solve the others in a similar manner.

3: Come up with a plan. For the steps taking too much time, consider self-imposed time limits. For the steps you hate, give yourself small rewards for completing them. For the steps you don’t understand well, learn about them from TED talks, YouTube videos, books, or internet searches.

4: Try it out and pay attention. As you implement your improvement plans, track how they’re working. Did you put more energy and time into the plan itself than the improvement warranted?

5: Go beyond fixing and maintenance. As you plug all these energy leaks and achieve a smoother process, consider the bigger picture. Perhaps you’ve now developed a very efficient method for selling low-grade stories. That may not have been your desire. It’s not worth optimizing a process that doesn’t result in the output you want.

If you start implementing negentropy into your writing now, you stand a great chance of optimizing it before maximum entropy brings about the heat death of the universe. That event may happen as soon as ten to the hundredth power years from now. That’s a googol years. Best not to schedule anything in your personal organizer for any date after that event.

Negentropy, turning chaos into order. That’s the main job of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 12, 2021Permalink

6 Things You Need to be a Successful Writer

In this post, author Mike Swift claims there are six things a successful writer needs. If you don’t already have these things, can you buy them at the store?

Here are the six things on his list:

  • A desire to be heard;
  • Life experience;
  • A way with words;
  • Perseverance;
  • Luck; and
  • Hard work.

I don’t see much to quibble about on his list. I was tempted to add Time, but if you have a desire to be heard, you’ll find time.

For now, let’s accept his list as accurate. Right now, you’re looking back over the list and checking off the items you have, and your tally is coming up a little short of six. So is mine. Now you’re asking: how do I get the ones I don’t have?

A Desire to be Heard. Perhaps you don’t have this. Or, more accurately, you don’t think you have this. Remember, at some point in your life, you had something important to say and everybody in the room was ignoring you, intent on something else. Think back to that feeling. You do have something to say, and it’s high time the world listened up.

Life Experience. Mike Swift equates this item with ‘having something to write about.’ He wasn’t implying that you have to be old or retired to write. In my view—and, I’m guessing, in his, too—even teenagers have sufficient life experience to write about. I think everyone over the age of thirteen can check this one.

A Way with Words. This might be the biggest stumbling block for most folks who’d like to write someday. They read the classics and think, “I could never write like that.” I suggest looking at it a different way. True, you could never write like [insert favorite author name here], but that author couldn’t ever write like you either. Perhaps you’re not looking for A Way with Words, but Your Way with Words. Moreover, this item pretty much gets checked off with practice. You’ll find your voice the more you write.

Perseverance. So you’re the type who gives up at the first setback. Can you learn perseverance? Yes. First, remember day follows night; that lowdown feeling of failure never lasts forever. Second, recall your Desire to be Heard; that might translate to a goal you can push for. Third, visualize your future self achieving that goal; visualization is a good motivation method. Fourth, realize you don’t have to do it all in one day; take bite-sized steps so you can get back on track and reward yourself for achieving those small tasks. Those things will help you persevere.

Luck. This might seem the one item on the list you can’t control. Luck just happens, right? Maybe. But if we examine the careers of the luckiest authors out there, we’ll likely find they’re also the ones who work hardest and persevere. Maybe we’ll find they’re open to new experiences, fresh ideas. In short, maybe, for them, luck didn’t just happen. They made it happen. Maybe you can, too.

Hard Work. Ooh. The difficult one. Can we skip this? I’m afraid not. However, for a writer, ‘hard work’ is not the same thing as it is for a bomb disposal expert, a brain surgeon, a skyscraper scaffold worker, or a firefighter. Folks in those professions might be willing to swap their job for the ‘hard work’ of a writer. Besides, these six things overlap, so if you have a Desire to be Heard and a little Perseverance, you’ll be willing to work hard.

Maybe you’ve rethought your tally and now can claim you have all six things. Success is in the bag now, right? Well, not so fast. These things aren’t like on/off switches where you either have them or you don’t. Each is a matter of degree. If you’re not a successful writer yet, it could be that you lack one or more of the six things to a sufficient extent.

To achieve success in writing, you need to keep working to improve all six items, not just the ones you’re weak in. In this struggle for self-improvement, you’re not alone. There’s at least one other—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 16, 2021Permalink

Writing Without Electricity

Recently I endured a power outage lasting over 38 hours. I’m not complaining about the outage. Many people have gone without electricity much longer than that.

Up until the dawn of the 20th Century, all people went without electrical power for their entire lives. However, many of us have become dependent on those tiny electrons flowing through wires, and it’s a major disruption when those particles stop moving.

Like most people, writers fall prey to this dependency We type on computer keyboards, we conduct research online, we write by the light of electric bulbs. It’s hard to imagine writing without these things. It is even possible?

Yes, of course it is. I wrote the rough draft of this post with pen and paper. I could have written it by candlelight, but used battery powered lights. Later, when the emergency was over, I transcribed and edited it on a computer. In fact, I create most of my first drafts—fiction stories and blogposts—using pen and paper.

I’m not suggesting you do that. You should write by whatever mechanism suits you, using the tools you prefer, when available. (Note: chiseling words into marble can be slow going).

All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t lose hope when the power goes out. You can satisfy your urge to write by different means.

You might even enjoy the pen-and-paper method. Freed from the computer, your writing might take a different direction. You might write about different subjects or explore new tones, settings, characters, or themes.

When the power comes back on, you can revert back to your accustomed methods. But you’ll always know you have a reliable backup.

The electricity’s back on here, but who knows when it will go out again? At least a simple power outage won’t slow down writing progress for you or for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 21, 2021Permalink

Putting on Your Writer’s Hat

Metaphorically, we all wear many hats. That is, we have many roles in life. For some of us, one of those roles is Writer. Let’s explore that.

I got the inspiration to write this post from this one, by Brian Feinblum.

You started your life with the role of daughter or son, and may still have that role. Maybe you’re a sister or brother, spouse, parent, employee, grandparent, volunteer. Most likely you’re a citizen, too. These are all examples of possible roles in your life. When you think about it, you probably have a good number of roles, between two and twenty or more at any one time. If you care about being a good person, you work hard to fulfill all of your roles well.

Problem is, it’s a balancing act. Each role requires time, and you only have so much of that. They all compete for your precious hours. That requires you to divide your time, keeping each plate spinning as best you can.

On occasion, you must devote nearly full time to one role and set the others aside. When someone you love becomes sick or injured, for example, your role involving that person must take precedence and the others must wait until the emergency is over. When there’s a major project at work, your employee or boss role predominates until the project is done.

When you must set several roles aside like that, the writer role is especially problematic. It’s a self-assigned role, based on your love of an activity, not a person. Unlike the role of spouse or employee, if you neglect your writing, it will patiently wait in the background, not complaining or otherwise reacting. If you set it aside for weeks, months, or years, there will be no adverse consequences.

Oh, your muse may squeal a bit. That voice inside, the one urging you to write, will yell loudly for a while. Eventually, that voice will fade and you’ll hear only an occasional whimper.

However, if you’re lucky enough, if life’s other roles allow you the time, you’ll remain a writer. You’ll carve out the time as best you can.

There are ways to make the best use of that time. Although the general guidance I’ll present below works for all your roles, I’m focused on your writer role.

In his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey recommends you take each role and set long-term goals, then make shorter term plans to achieve those goals, then set aside time each week to schedule the most important tasks to advance the plans.

The goals and plans don’t all have to be writing projects (stories). The tasks that support them can also include:

  • attending writing or genre conferences,
  • reading books about writing,
  • taking writing classes,
  • self-assigned writing assignments to work on particular weaknesses,
  • researching aspects of writing you’re curious about or need help with,
  • critiquing other writer’s works,
  • reading classic fiction,
  • increasing your online footprint,
  • blogging,
  • updating your website,
  • getting an author photo taken, or
  • hundreds of other ideas that might help you achieve your writing goals.

This needn’t be a complex or overly organized process. Mold it to suit you.

Uh oh. Another role is beckoning. Time to take off the Writer hat of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 31, 2021Permalink

Break Bad Habits, Forge Good Ones

A sad fact of human nature is that it’s easy to form and continue bad habits, while it’s tough to make and maintain good ones. Although this post is meant to help writers, the technique I present could help anyone with a habit problem.

An excellent post by Leo Babauta inspired me to build on his thoughts.

Perhaps you’d like to break a bad habit of using too many adverbs in your writing. Or maybe you’d like to form the good habit of incorporating all five senses into your descriptions. Whatever bad thing you want less of, or good thing you want more of, read on.

The Habit Chain

Since I last wrote about habits, I’ve refined my thinking. I now think of them as a process, a chain with links. Habits start out as deliberate routine actions. You have to consciously think about them the first few times. They usually are triggered by something else, and I’ll call that a cue. The cue occurs, you perform the routine action, and get a reward. The reward generally satisfies some need you have. (In the case of good habits, you usually have to provide the reward yourself.)

Eventually, whenever the cue occurs, you feel a strong urge to perform the routine so you can get the reward. With enough repetition of this process, you start performing the action unconsciously, right after the cue, and you earn the reward right away. That routine action has now become a habit. The shorter the time between cue and action, and action and reward, the stronger the links are and the more ingrained the habit will be.

Obviously, the idea is to break your bad habit chains and forge good habit chains.

Breaking or Forging Habit Chains

  1. State Your Reason. This method takes some effort, so identify why you want to tackle this particular habit. Later, when the going gets tough, it will be useful to remind yourself why you set off on the journey.
  2. Commit to the Effort. This isn’t an ‘oh, well, I’ll give it a try’ kind of thing. This is heart and soul time. This is not the hen’s involvement with your breakfast; it’s the pig’s total commitment. You didn’t form the bad habit overnight, and you won’t forge the good one quickly either; this will take time.
  3. Obtain Support and be Accountable. Seek an ‘accountability partner’ who will periodically ask for progress updates and to whom you’ll report. Schedule regular meetings with your partner to keep on track.
  4. Identify your Cues. Find the event that triggers your bad habit. Or, to forge a good habit, pick an event that will trigger you to perform that good habit.
  5. Work on the Cue-Action Link.
    • For bad habits, pause when the cue occurs. Try to resist the urge to perform the habit. Also, think about alternate, or replacement actions you could take to satisfy the need, and work on performing those instead of the ingrained habit action.
    • For good habits, perform the desired action as soon after the cue as possible. Whenever the cue occurs, work on making the routine action as automatic as possible.
  6. Work on the Action-Reward Link.
    • For bad habits, think about why you crave the reward. What need is it satisfying? Are there other ways to satisfy it? If it’s possible to deny yourself the reward, try that and see what happens.
    • For good habits, reward yourself promptly after completing the action. Tightening that link will help ingrain the habit.
  7. Remind Yourself. Bad habits become so automatic that they follow the cue by reflex action. Good habits need to follow immediately after their cue. Therefore, you need visual reminders of your habit-breaking or habit-forging effort placed around where the cues occur.
  8. Permit No Exceptions. You’ll never break that bad habit or adopt that new one if you give yourself an out. The moment you backslide and make excuses for that, you’re well on the road to abandoning the effort.
  9. Don’t Beat Yourself Up. Okay, the ‘no exceptions’ rule didn’t work and you messed up. The cue occurred and you went back to your bad habit or failed to perform the good habit. Rather than giving up, or getting a self-defeating attitude, look back at Step 1 and remind yourself of the important reason you started taking these steps. Then, learn from the backsliding episode. Analyze what happened and why. Alter your approach. Consider new ways to break a bad habit chain or reinforce a good habit chain. Focus on the cue and realize there’s a moment of decision between it and the habit, an opportunity for you to change.
  10. Stay Positive. Maintain an upbeat and confident attitude about this habit-changing process. You can do it. You’re not doomed to repeat your past mistakes. You have the capacity to change for the better and you can make those changes work for you. Of course it will be difficult, but few worthwhile things are easy.

There you have it. Good luck! Remember, some habits are okay and require no change, like my habit of signing all my blogposts as—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 24, 2021Permalink

The Misery Problem

Imagine this: you’re a successful author with a long-running book series. Suddenly the creative well runs dry and your muse wants to end the series and write different stories, with different characters. However, your fans are begging for the series to continue.

That’s the problem faced by author Paul Sheldon in Stephen King’s novel Misery (1987), so let’s call it the Misery Problem. I mentioned this in a previous blogpost and promised I’d get back to it.

What if the Misery Problem happened to you, in real life? Assuming you didn’t become the victim of an obsessed reader fan who’s also a psychotic nurse, what would you do?

Before I discuss some of your options, I must say this is a problem I’d love to have! After considering it, I’ve come up with the following options:

  • Follow Your Muse. End that series that’s become an albatross around your neck. Terminate it by killing off one or more of the beloved characters. You’re tired of those books and you need to move on to other things. Let the fans complain all they want. They’ll adjust.
  • Throw Your Fans a Bone. If you really don’t want to disappoint your readers, and if you can stand to write some more stories in the series, but along a different vein, consider:
    • A Prequel. Explore what happened before the events of your series.
    • An Origin Story. This is a special kind of prequel that relates the story of how your series character(s) got started.
    • A Spinoff. Pick an engaging secondary character from your series and write stories about that character. This might work well if you tried to end your series with the death of a main character.
    • A Crossover. Consider this if you’ve started a second, unrelated series set in the same time period as the first. In a crossover, characters from the two series meet and interact.
  • Please Your Fans. You hate to disappoint your readers, and perhaps you can bring yourself to continue the series. However, you’ve killed off a beloved main character. What to do?
    • If you write fantasy, you could conjure up some magical explanation for bringing that character back to life.
    • If you write scifi, you’ll need a pseudo-scientific explanation for bringing the character back to life.
    • Re-read the scenes where you killed the character off. Is there some wiggle room? Did the character really die, or is survival possible somehow?

Can you come up with other solutions to the Misery Problem? We can only hope it’s a conundrum to be faced someday by you and by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 10, 2021Permalink

7 Things to Know Before You Retire to Write Full Time

It’s tough to write part time while still working at your day job. I know. I did it for several decades, all the while dreaming of how prolific I’d be and how much money I’d make when I retired.

Well, I’ve been retired for nearly three years. How’s it going so far?

In truth, things aren’t as good as I’d hoped, nor as bad as I feared. Still, I’ve learned some lessons.

If you’re still laboring in a day job, looking forward to retirement when you’ll write all day and rake in those large-advance contracts, perhaps you’ll benefit from my seven take-aways:

  1. Writing time will increase, but maybe not to full time. There will still be other things to do, the non-writing parts of life. Those won’t stop.
  2. There will still be reasons not to write. If you’ve been good at making excuses for avoiding things you should do, you’ll still do that in retirement. You might become better at it.
  3. Becoming rich may stay a dream. For most of you, writing will not provide much supplement to your retirement income.
  4. It may be harder to discipline your time. While you’re working, clocks rule your life and you squeeze writing into the available hours. When you retire, you’ll have more time, but it’s easier to waste it.
  5. You may have to adjust to life without a boss. During your working years, you’ve gotten used to having a supervisor tell you what to do. Can you manage your own time without a boss?
  6. Others might have a say. Perhaps your home companion’s vision of your retirement doesn’t include you sitting alone and typing for hours on end. Best to settle those issues before retirement day.
  7. You might get bored with writing. That hasn’t happened to me, but it could. Do you have a Plan B if you tire of the writing biz?

I don’t mean to give you the wrong impression. I’m enjoying my retirement and I’m writing more than I used to. It’s been great. Maybe, for you, retirement will provide the time you need to achieve the writing success you’ve dreamed of. I hope so. But it’s good to have realistic expectations.

Writing always starts with dreaming. But at some point, you’ve got to put words together using whatever time you have. If you still have a day job, write when you can. Don’t waste valuable time fantasizing about retirement, like—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 15, 2020Permalink

8 Distractoxins and Their Antidotes

Distractions are like poison to writers, interrupting word flow and reducing productivity. They come in various forms, so let’s call them ‘Distractoxins.’ Are there any cures?

First, I must give credit to author Dan Blank, who inspired this post with his hilarious list of writer distraction. Well worth reading.

I came up with my own list of distractoxins likely to interrupt a writer’s work. For each one I’ve got an antidote. You may experience distractions that aren’t on my list, and I’d love to hear about yours. Also, my antidotes aren’t guaranteed for everyone, so please let me know if you have different cures that work for you.

  1. Decorations. By this I mean other items in your writing room. They include bookshelves, clocks, furniture, lamps, knickknacks, wall pictures, etc. While considering your next sentence, you may fix your eyes on any of these items and your thoughts may drift away from the writing task at hand.

Antidote: Minimize the number of these items in your writing room. Avoid bringing new items in, since your eye will be attracted to any change.

  1. Fatigue. This needs no explanation. It happens.

Antidote: Stand up, walk around, swing your arms. You could try coffee, tea, or an energy drink but don’t overdo those.

  1. Internet. This includes social media, videos, email, and all the other attractions of our marvelous internet. Everything there seems so urgent and attention-grabbing, as if designed to distract us.

Antidote: Find a method of writing that limits your contact with the internet. This can include writing with ink on paper or using a typewriter, single-function word processor (like AlphaSmart or FreeWrite), or one of the various distraction-minimizing apps. The latter include Calmly Writer, FocusWriter, Ommwriter, Q10, WriteMonkey, and WriteRoom.

  1. People. There may be other people in your house, or neighbors, and it seems their mission in life is to interrupt you.

Antidote: There may be little you can do about this, since you may care about these people almost as much as you care about your writing. Still, you can close the door, hang a do-not-disturb sign, and hope for the best.

  1. Phone. The trouble is, you never know in advance if a call is important or not, but the ringing makes it seem urgent.

Antidote: Yes, you can turn off a phone, and you might have to resort to that. If you don’t want to go that far, then let it ring. Important people leave messages.

  1. Television. I like to joke that the inventors of TV in the 1920s had nothing to watch; now we have hundreds of channels, yet we suffer from the same problem they did. Not really true—there’s plenty to watch, and your friends and coworkers expect you to talk about favorite shows tomorrow.

Antidote: Every remote has an ‘off’ button. There’s no such thing as must-see-TV.

  1. To-Do Lists. There’s more to your life than writing, with many tasks to be done. While writing, thoughts of those undone tasks can nag you.

Antidote: This is a time management problem. Schedule time for writing, and for life’s other tasks. Work on higher priority things first, but leave some time for things you enjoy, like writing.

  1. Windows. Here I’m talking about actual windows, through which you can see the alluring outside world.

Antidote: Curtains or blinds.

The best antidote for any of these distractoxins is to note the signs of onset. You can feel yourself getting sidelined. You can realize it’s a choice you make, not an inevitable happening. Remember: you control your attention. Learn to recognize the moment a distractoxin takes over and, in that instant, make a conscious effort to recall why your writing task was important and imagine how good you’ll feel when you’re done.

Ooh. Excuse me. Shiny object over there. Wait…no…must focus on writing…must apply antidote…must save—

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 1, 2020Permalink

You Don’t Need a Mission Statement

Many organizations have mission statements. Some people have their own personal mission statement. A few writers have an ‘author mission statement.’ I don’t think you need one, and I’ll explain why.

According to most definitions of mission statements, their purpose is to serve as a goal or agenda, to communicate the organization’s (or person’s) purpose to all stakeholders, and to create a sense of unity and identity.

To those purposes, I would add this: a mission statement can maintain focus and motivation.

Several authors have their own mission statement. Robert J. Sawyer’s is “to combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic.” Dr. Randy Ingermanson’s is “to write excellent novels and non-fiction; to market my work like a mad genius; and to teach other writers to do the same.” Leanne Sowul’s is rather long, but begins this way: “My mission is to write fiction that tells stories from multiple perspectives about a significant moment in time.” Joanne Phillips’ is also long, and starts as follows: “I write stories to entertain and offer a temporary escape into another life.”

If all these authors have mission statements, and many have explained their reasons for having one, why am I suggesting you don’t need one? Who am I to go against the accumulated genius of more successful writers?

I’m not disparaging anyone’s mission statement. If other writers receive some benefit from theirs, more power to them. If you’re determined to come up with one for yourself, I’m not here to talk you out of it.

Also, I’m not against mission statements in general. They’re great for organizations. Even personal mission statements, of the sort advocated by Stephen R. Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, have significant value.

I’m just suggesting, before you invest the time to craft an author mission statement, you might ask yourself why you’re doing it. Do you believe you’ll write better after you have one? Do you occasionally forget why you’re writing and need a reminder? Do you really need the prodding of words on a brass plaque above your desk?

It’s not like you’re leading a team where members will stray off on tangents or act counter to the goal. For your fiction writing endeavors, it’s just you.

Think of other significant roles you have in life, possibly spouse, parent, employee, etc. Do you have written mission statements for any of those individual roles? If not, what makes your writer role different?

Most likely you started your hobby because an inner voice kept screaming “Write!” during your waking hours, and it’s never let up. Do you need more prompting than that?

Remember, time spent honing your mission statement is time not spent writing fiction.

Obviously, you’re free to do your own thing, in your own way. No matter your reason, you might want a written author mission statement, and might glean some benefit from having one.

Please leave a comment if you disagree with me. I’m especially interested in why you crafted your author mission statement, and how you think it has helped you.

For now, writing without any mission statement whatsoever, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 11, 2020Permalink

10 Traits Writers Need Most

What traits do you need to become a successful fiction writer? Of those, which are most important?

Author Anne R. Allen wrote a blogpost some years ago that inspired this line of thinking for me. She had encountered people who thought talent was necessary, and sufficient. They’d send her their written excerpts and ask, “Do you think I’ve got the talent?”

Anne Allen argued, persuasively, that natural talent might aim you in your life’s direction, but is far less important than skill, or several other traits she cited.

I decided to carry the argument in a different direction. Given the traits she mentioned, could I come up with an ordered list from most important to least important?

Using a technique called pair-wise comparison, I used a matrix to compare each trait against each of the others and added up the scores.

First, let’s define each one in alphabetical order:

  • Creativity, or Imagination. This wasn’t on Anne R. Allen’s list, but I consider it important. Basically, it’s the ability to come up with new ideas, to invent characters, plots, scene descriptions, etc.
  • Drive. This is the inner motivation or impulse to write. It’s that determination, that self-discipline, that pushes you to create fictional worlds.
Gratitude symbol
  • Gratitude. By this, Anne meant the willingness to accept help in the form of negative criticism, particularly comments on your manuscript from beta readers and editors. I would have called it Toughness, or Thick Skin, but we’ll keep with Anne’s term.
  • Learning. This is the willingness to acquire new writing skills by educating yourself. There are numerous methods, including studying the classics, taking classes, participating in critique groups, and reading books about writing. Choose the method that works for you.
  • Marketing. This trait measures how well you understand what your readership wants and how well you expose potential readers to your writing. These days, you have to know the market and be willing to advertise yourself.
  • Observation. Anne called this trait “Listening Skills,” but I sought a one-word description. Writers must watch and listen to people, how they behave, what they say, what facial expressions and gestures they use, what verbal expressions and dialect they employ, etc. Such knowledge will make your characters seem more realistic.
  • Passion. This describes your love of writing. Although related to Drive, this is more about the pleasure you derive from the act of writing itself.
Tabono Symbol
  • Persistence. It’s a measure of your willingness and ability to overcome setbacks, to solve problems and move forward, to rise after falling.
  • Skill. This trait describes the quality of your writing. Anne had much to say about skill, but didn’t include it specifically in her list of traits. She defined ‘talent’ as inborn skill, but believed few people had talent, but most could develop skill. Her post suggested that ‘skill’ was an umbrella term that included all the other traits. I believe skill is independent of all of them, and merely addresses how well you write.
  • Solitude. Anne called this ‘The Ability to be Alone’ and made it clear that writing is not just for introverts. It’s just that extroverts must leave their comfort zone for a while, since writing is an individual effort.

Obviously, there are inter-relationships and overlaps among these traits. Still, they’re distinct enough that I was able to rate each one in importance against all the others. Below is my subjective list from most important to least:

  1. Creativity
  2. Drive
  3. Passion
  4. Observation
  5. Learning
  6. Skill
  7. Persistence
  8. Gratitude
  9. Marketing
  10. Solitude

As a general pattern, you can see my most important ones are traits that get you started, and the least important (with the exception of Solitude) are traits you develop as a result of having written and submitted your work.

That list may not seem right to you, but it works for—

Poseidon’s Scribe

August 2, 2020Permalink