Category Archives: writer

Six Things You Need to Know About Your Writer

by
Rhonda Browning White

Today we’re sharing this popular (and accurate) blog essay, “Six Things You Need to Know About Your Writer,” written by IFW editor, Rhonda Browning White. You can read more of Rhonda’s essays with reading recommendations, writing advice, travel, dining, and even an occasional recipe or two, on her blog, Read.Write.Live! at RhondaBrowningWhite.com.

So your friend—or, God help you, your spouse—is a writer. Chances are, the more you get to know your writer, the more confused you’ll feel. Writers are odd ducks. We’re fun. We’re irritating. We’re enigmas and amoebas. How are you supposed to make sense of someone who flip-flops more than cheap rubber shower thongs? It’ll help you to know a few things about us that might make us a little easier to understand. Or not. No one says we are easy.

1. We are extroverted introverts. Writers realize the importance of socialization; in fact, we’re often pushed to network, self-promote, and mingle in order to make the necessary connections to publish our work, or sell it once it is published, so that we can publish again. We can juggle Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, all while texting and providing riotous dinner-party banter. Sometimes we are wildly gregarious, prone to spontaneous road trips or bar-hopping. We can be the life of the party, cracking witty jokes you can’t wait to tell your friends at the water cooler, and boogying to every song the band plays. Don’t count on our amusing behavior to last, however, because . . .

2. We are introverted extroverts. You know that party we looked forward to all week? The one we chattered about incessantly, the one for which we bought a sparkly dress and fabulous shoes? We might arrive and sit quietly in a corner. Yes, last weekend we sang karaoke at midnight and break-danced as an encore, but this weekend we’re happy to play the wallflower, soaking up all that energy we expended the last time we were out. We’re having fun—don’t think we aren’t, even if we’re not smiling—because we’re watching, we’re processing, and we’re thinking. And it’s likely that something we see, hear, smell, feel, or taste will show up later in the story we’re writing.

3. We are usually right. Writers are sometimes perceived as know-it-alls. It isn’t that we believe we know everything, though we surely wish we did. We’re avid researchers, constant readers, and we’re always questioning how this works and why that doesn’t. We study the ingredients on cereal boxes. Our dictionaries actually wear out from overuse. Our Google search history could easily get us arrested. We’re smart, because we thirst for knowledge like a sponge in the Sahara Desert, and we’ll track down an expert for answers as doggedly as if he were the Aquafina man. When we offer unsolicited advice, consider it a gift (this is one we hope you’ll return!), because we give it in the spirit of helpfulness, not haughtiness.

4. But we are often wrong. And it breaks our hearts. It embarrasses us. Mortifies us. Many times, we know the answer, but our always-in-overdrive brains sometimes can’t shift gears quickly enough to turn a tight corner. So when you ask us the difference between a simile and a metaphor, and we answer incorrectly—though we’ve known the answer at a cellular level since third grade—it isn’t because we’re dumb. It’s because our minds are absorbing new information, or we are creating a new character in our minds, or writing a scene for a work in progress—or all of this is happening simultaneously in our heads while we’re attempting to answer your question. Besides, if we truly don’t know the answer, you can bet we’ll look it up.

5. We are not ignoring you. Yes, you’ve said our name three times, and when we finally respond, we ask you to repeat yourself twice. It’s sometimes difficult for us to come back to this planet when we are in a world of our own making. We are often visiting universes that we’ve created inside of our heads. We have to go there. Have you ever read a story and envisioned the scene as if it were playing out in front of you? That’s because a writer became so intensely involved in the creation of that setting that she pictured it in vivid detail—scents, sounds, surfaces, and more—so much so that she temporarily blocked out this world in order to create that one. It’s a necessary part of the job, and it’s what makes us good at what we do. It’s hard to hear you when we’re intently listening to the monologue or dialogue inside of our heads. Be patient. Repeat yourself. We’ll catch up to you.

6. Except when we’re ignoring you. Writing is a solitary profession driven by creativity that requires deep internal thought. The busyness and business of everyday life must be shut out both mentally and physically for us to work at peak capacity and get in touch with our highest creative selves. We’re okay with shutting the door—and locking it. We’re fine going all week without television, and we may equally be fine letting it play all day on the same unwatched channel. We don’t feel guilty letting your call go to voicemail. (In fact, when we’re writing, a ringing phone can be the equivalent of a pipe bomb exploding in our laps.) We can exist for days on coffee and candy corn or wine and Doritos. Don’t worry. We’ll come around soon enough, and we’ll again be ready to jabber until your ears wear out or spin you around the dance floor until your legs grow numb.

We know we’re different. We’re okay with that. And we hope with every breath that you’re okay with it, because we need you. When we come back to this earth, this country, this room, we want to find you there. After all, it’s you we’re writing for.

Tip for Writers: Be sure to email the link to this article to your your friend or significant other, or print it out and strategically place it where they will see it. Then get back to writing.

How a No-Good Normal Person Became a Writer

by
Sandy Tritt

I thought I was a good writer. All through school and college, I got A’s in English and Creative Writing and the dozens of literature classes that filled my schedule. My friends all said I was a good writer. People I didn’t know made positive comments about my stories, and I even got a few of them published in local and state journals. 

And then, in the early nineties, I entered the West Virginia Writers Annual Competition for Novels. I won second place, which came with a nice certificate and a check for $150. And it came with a bonus—Mr. D, the judge of the event that year, critiqued the winning entries. Excited, I jumped to the back page to see his overview comments. He said, “You write well—for a normal person. The problem is, you don’t want to be a normal person. You want to be a writer. And you have a lot to learn before you can be a writer.” 

Say what? Even though tears had already started stinging my eyes, I had to re-read his comment to make sure I hadn’t misread. And that was exactly what he’d said. Your writing sucks.

It was late—probably eleven p.m.—the awards program had followed a too-long banquet with a mouthy keynote speaker—and I had to drive home, about fifty minutes away. “You have a lot to learn before you can be a writer” hit me at every milepost, at every traffic light, at every pothole. The words burned not only my eyes, but my heart. I would never write again. Never. I was an imposter, a no-good normal person who could never cross the realm to live in the world of real writers. 

The girls were already in bed when I got home, but my husband was waiting up. He met me with, “What’s wrong?” I tearfully showed him the indictment. You have a lot to learn before you can be a writer. 

Butch just shrugged. “What don’t you write him and ask him what he means by that?” He kissed me and went to bed. 

Do what? There was no question what he meant. You are not a writer. 

By Monday, I had gone through my manuscript. There were many places where he’d made comments such as, “Stop right here. Go get a dictionary and look up the word ‘melodrama.’ That’s what this is. Melodrama. And it doesn’t make the reader feel anything—except the need to vomit” or “What makes you think putting an exclamation mark here makes your story more exciting? If your reader can’t feel the urgency by the words you’ve written, you’re not going to make them feel it by using a whole row of exclamation marks.” But there were other places where he wrote things like, “Now this is fine writing.” Or “This is the way to write it! Good job!”

On Tuesday, I typed a letter out to Mr. D. I thanked him for the critique of my manuscript, and I asked him if he’d be willing to look at a rewrite of the scene he’d chastised as being a melodramatic mess. Surprisingly, a week or so later, I received a letter back (no email back then). He graciously invited me to send him the scene. And a mentorship was born.

For the next two years, I sent scene after scene to Mr. D, and he returned them promptly with comments and encouragements. He gave me reading assignments. He suggested craft books. I coveted every word he said, and I worked hard to understand concepts I’d never given a lot of thought to before. Narrative Voice. Point of View. Denouement. But, more than anything, I learned how to control character emotion. I learned how to make the reader supply the emotion instead of exhausting it all with melodrama. I learned how to write. 

I left the sphere of normal people (which, to be truthful, I never quite fit in anyway) and entered the world of writers. For, you see, you’re not born with the title writer. It isn’t like eye color or skin tone or ancestry. It isn’t a gift. It’s something you learn, something you earn.

Do you want to be a writer? We’d love to be your bridge between the world of normal people and the world of writers. All you have to do is shoot us an email at IFWeditors@gmail.com. Chat soon!

I Am Thankful for Mistakes

by Sherry Wilson

I am Thankful for Mistakes
This week as we give thanks for all of the wonderful things in our lives and celebrate with family and friends, I started to think about my writing life. More particularly about how my writing life might be improved—how all of our careers might be improved—by an attitude of gratitude.

Throughout school we learn to write, so by the time we graduate, we figure we have a pretty good idea of how to write. But do we really? The shift between school and a professional level of writing is like the difference between school band and a professional music career. In both cases, there is room to grow, to learn, to get better.

I think it’s when we forget about this quest that things become more difficult for us as writers. We need to give ourselves permission to relax a little and enjoy the process. I mean, if you decided you wanted to play an instrument and you signed yourself up for piano lessons, you wouldn’t expect to play like Glenn Gould next week—or even next year, for that matter. You would practice. You’d put in your hours. You wouldn’t do it because you thought you’d be able to play like Glenn Gould. You’d do it for the fun of it. Because, while learning a new instrument is work, it’s also fun. That’s why we call it playing an instrument. But we expect much more of ourselves as beginning writers. We expect to write like Hemingway, or Bradbury, or Stephen King. But what we should do is just relax, play around with the words and the ideas, and make mistakes—lots and lots of mistakes. Try writing it one way and if you don’t like the results, then try something else. Make the mistakes. Learn your strengths and your weaknesses. Find your own, unique voice.

We need to give ourselves the gift of allowing ourselves to make mistakes—without judgment. I mean, you don’t judge every wrong note you play when you learn the saxophone. If you put yourself down every time you make a squeak, you’ll never learn to play. Just notice the mistakes and keep going. Next time through, try writing it a different way. What works? What doesn’t? Why? Do you see just how large this gift is? When you are able to separate yourself, the person, from the written work, you’ll learn so much from those precious mistakes. And you can be thankful for the mistakes because they bring you so much closer to the writer you want to be.

In order to be a great writer, of course, or any writer at all, for that matter, we have to put in our time—pay our dues and practice. We have to sit our butts in our chairs and write. Like the cellist who will never get better without taking the time to play, the writer will never improve if he doesn’t do the work. No amount of talking about being a writer or critiquing or reading will get you there. It’s all about the hours in the chair. 

One good side effect of this, though—regular hours in the chair lets the muse know where and when to show up.

Besides spending the time writing, I’ve learned that when gratitude becomes a daily focus, amazing things start to happen. I’ve seen this in my own life over the past couple of years. So now I want to extend this to my writing career. But what do I mean? How do you do it?

  • Make a list of the things you love about writing. Why do you do it? Why did you start writing? What makes you keep going? What parts do you absolutely love about the process?
  • Pick three things that you are most thankful for in your writing life. What are the three best things about the act of writing?
  • Write these three things on a piece of paper and tack it to your monitor where you will see it every day.
  • Get a stone, ring, necklace or some other symbol that you can carry with you throughout the day. Every time you touch this object, think about how grateful you are for your writing career. Close your eyes for a moment and think about what makes you happy. Maybe it’s that feeling when the words just pour out onto the page and you feel like they’re coming from a different place—like you’ve tapped into something bigger than yourself. Imagine yourself writing, the words just flowing through you. Let yourself feel the euphoria. Experience it as if it were real and happening to you whenever you touch the object. Get into the habit of doing this several times a day. At best your writing will flow better. At worst, you will spend several minutes a day feeling truly happy and content with your life.

So what’s it going to be? You can go through your writing journey feeling like you’ll never get anywhere—you’ll never be one of the greats—you’ll never find that one right story when all the planets align and something like Harry Potter will fall into your lap or pop into your head while you’re riding a train. You can count all the reasons you aren’t as good as some famous writer. Or you can spend your time feeling good about all you’ve learned and the progress you’ve made. You can be happy that you had a good session yesterday and confident that you will again tomorrow. You can enjoy the process.

The top three things that I’m grateful for:

  • All of my wonderful writing friends—those who critique my work, those who argue with me for hours over comma usage, and those who just let me vent when I’m having a bad day. Yes, these friends are any writer’s greatest asset and I’m forever grateful for my writing buddies.
  • Unfinished projects—even if my time is limited and I struggle to find time to work on my own projects, I’m so grateful they sit there waiting for me. My characters are so patient. They only occasionally wake me up during the night and prod me to get back to work.
  • Those brief moments of flow when the words just pour out onto the page. It’s as if the story is writing itself right in front of me. I cherish each moment and live for the next one.


Let’s all give gratitude a try and see what happens. I don’t know what will come of it, but what harm could it do? Let’s spend the next year working on improving our attitude of gratitude and see where we are next year.