(Orginally supposed to be posted on Leanne Tyler's blog on 3/3/14 but due to technical issues wasn't posted.)
In the December 2013 issue of the
Romance Writers Report (RWR) there was an article titled, “What Advice
Would You Give Your Younger Self” that started me thinking. What advice
would I give my younger self if possible?
The first piece of advice would be
“Don’t let anyone tell you you’re wasting your time pursuing something
they think you don’t have a chance of attaining.” I stopped writing for
ten years before I gathered the courage to try again. Oh I still wrote
here and there – snippets of dialogue, bits of scenes, things about
characters that wouldn’t leave me alone until I put them on paper but
that’s all they were – random thoughts that languished for too long in a
hanging folder in the back of a desk drawer.
The second piece goes hand in hand
with the first. “Don’t waste time.” Write every day or if you can’t,
write as often as you can even if it’s only in 10 or 15 increments. I
lost those ten years that I can’t get back. Who knows where I’d be in my
writing career today if I hadn’t put my dreams on hold.
My last piece of advice would be to
soak in all the advice and all the how to’s you’re given by those
writers who’ve already been where you are now. Don’t be afraid to ask
questions. When other writers offer to share their knowledge, take them
up on it and then pay that generosity forward by helping those who ask
questions or advice of you.
I practice the second and third
pieces of advice daily. They both have made a world of difference in my
writing and my attitude toward it.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
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