Write, find luck, be strong…oh, and enjoy

I have been incredibly honoured to feature a range of brilliant authors on my blog (with more to come!). Back on 28 August 2014, I shared some of their tips for aspiring and emerging writers. That post was “If it means that much to you, do it”. Now, I am pleased to bring you another round of sage advice. Take from it what you will, but we all hope you do take something from this.

Angela Savage

The best advice I was given when I started out as a writer was, “Just get the story down.” I had to learn to ditch the thesaurus and stop reworking the opening paragraph for days on end. As Geoffrey McGeachin puts it in the essay collection, If I Tell You…I’ll Have to Kill You: Australia’s Leading Crime Writers Reveal Their Secrets (to which I am also a contributor), “Real writing is rewriting – every writer knows this is true.”

My other top tip is do not feel compelled to write only what you know. Crime writers in particular should heed this advice. You don’t need to commit murder to write about one. That’s what your imagination is for.

Honey Brown

What I find with tips and advice is that we only ever latch onto those things that we already believe in anyway. We tend to switch off when someone starts saying something that doesn’t fit with what we want to hear. Given that creativity comes from within us, it’s not such a surprise we’re selective in this way. My tip then, is to write your own top five “must-dos”. Imagine you’re a published author, and that your advice will be seen by novice writers and respected peers; think of yourself as smashing it right across the globe, book deals rocking in thick and fast, reprints going off like crazy, awards banking up. What five things are most important to you? What do you imagine got you to that bestseller, critically acclaimed spot? You’ll probably see that you know only too well what it takes to lift to that next level.

All I would add to that is – good luck, because we’re all at the mercy of that allusive, flighty, capricious luck.  

Rowena Holloway

I think the best advice I can give anyone – and it is something I’ve only just discovered – is to build resilience. I know it is a bit of a buzzword, but resilience is a necessary quality. I have a quote on my wall from the movie Only You: “You only failed because you didn’t try”. Every time I think I’m going to quit I look at that, take a breath, and keep going.

One of the ironies of this life is that to really connect with a reader we have to bleed on the page. We dig deep, often into experiences we’d rather forget, to create believable, relatable characters and storylines. Just the act of doing that can be confronting, though often cathartic. And yet, when it comes to knockbacks and snarky reviews we are told to toughen-up.

For most of us it takes years of hard work, of saying no to friends and family so that we can spend time writing, of taking the knockbacks, no matter how gently delivered, and getting up to do it all over again.

So, yes, read widely, write every day and study your craft, but build resilience so that you can keep going in the face of adversity.

Rachel Amphlett

I’ve learned so much in the three years I’ve been writing and publishing, and I’m a big believer in paying it forward. I share a lot of tips and tricks on my blog but my top tip would be “Don’t Give Up!”

If you truly have the need to write, then you’ll get there in the end. Sure, there are writers who seem to release a book every six months, but there are others that release a book every three years – find your own pace and enjoy the journey.

Chris Allen

The top tip is simple: write. You need to get words on the page. They won’t write themselves or magically jump from your mind into your computer.

So, write.

Procrastination is your enemy!

Hope you are inspired and itching to get back to your writing. Enjoy and good luck!
Cheers,
Sandi