I was thinking the other day about what helps me most as a writer. What have I done that has helped me improve my writing. I broke it down into, reading, writing and feedback.

…Reading not only books about writing, but just books in general. Seeing how other writers put sentences together, weave stories, etc.

…Writing of course…as the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.”

…Feedback. I feel like I made and continue to make big strides after I joined a writer’s group and got feedback. Not the ‘Oh you’re awesome’ variety,  (because let me tell you, it’s rare!!) but the constructive variety. Here’s what’s wrong with it, and here’s how you can make it better. I don’t know how writers DON’T go to writer’s groups, honestly.

There are other things that help, workshops, etc. but those are my big three.

What are yours?

Happy Tuesday everybody! Due to some unforeseen circumstances, I’m postponing your regularly scheduled feature writer today. *sigh, groan* I know. But fear not, the series will return next week.

Today, I found an interesting couple of articles about young readers, both from the Washington Post.

One article pertains to graphic novels for beginning readers. I had never really thought of graphic novels as all that amazing…back in my day we called them comic books. But after seeing my daughter become obsessed with Star Wars and then wanting to clean the library out of every Star Wars graphic novel they had, I began to change my mind. She loved them, and even became inspired to create her own comic, “Mr. Sharp and Ninja Chicken.” I’ll let you know when it’s published. Here’s the WaPo article.

The other article talks about the future of children’s publishing and how it’s going to be a lot different from when we were kids! It’ll be exciting to see how it all evolves. Here’s that article.

When I was a kid, I read everything from Nancy Drew to Shel Silverstein, to Stephen King. Mr. King almost got me in trouble in fourth grade. I brought in “Cycle of the Werewolf” for free reading time and the edition I had, had comic-bookish images in it. Some of them fairly graphic. My teacher said nothing to me, but ended up calling my mom to see if she was aware of the “kinds of books I was reading.” My mom said, “Yes, I’m the one who gave it to her.” Good or bad parenting…you decide. LOL

To sort of piggy-back on yesterday’s post about what readers want, I’m curious, what do you read?

Do you tend to read in the genre you write or do you kind of go all over the map?

Right now I’m reading a mix of things.

Dead and Alive by Dean Koontz. It’s the third in his Frankenstein trilogy. Good stuff.

Moonwalk by Michael Jackson. His autobiography. Not far in yet but it’s interesting so far.

Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I admit…I’ve been slack with the course, but I’m still with. I will finish, dammit!

I just finished a book, which I won’t name, because I really like the author, but the book was such a disappointment, that well…*sigh* I just can’t talk about it. I’m too upset. Hopefully you haven’t read anything lately that’s had THAT effect on you, but if you have, please share. We can get through this together.

And if you haven’t already, be sure and friend me on Goodreads!

Have a great weekend.

As writer’s we  write what we are presented with. An idea or characters start to form, and we write it. When that inspiration hits, it’s the best feeling in the world. Birds sing when you walk by, the sun shines a little brighter. For me, seriously, it’s like falling in love.

Then we edit. Some people love it, some people hate it. For me, this is the time in the relationship where the honeymoon is over, and now we’re starting to fight and argue. We fight, we make up…sometimes. But now the scars are there. It’s make it or break it time. If we can make it through the editing process, we can make it through anything, and hopefully we’ll be better and stronger on the other side.

Then, we send it out, get an agent and a huge advance and a multi book publishing deal. We start hanging out with big time authors and having millions of people worship us. For me…ok, I don’t know what that’s like yet, but I’ll bet it’s awesome.

Basically, we write because we love it and we can’t NOT do it. If we’re honest with ourselves, we write for ourselves, NOT for other people. We hope beyond hope that other people, (besides our writing group buddies) like reading our work too, because if we are to make a LIVING off of our writing, it’s essential that other people like it. But, what do readers really want?

As a reader, my must haves are plot and character. Style is important, but secondary. I love a good turn of phrase, but if there’s no plot and character, so what?

As a reader, what’s important to you?

Here’s an interesting article by Salon’s own Laura Miller on that very topic.