Here are five reasons new writers should keep going, no matter what setbacks are thrown their way.

1) You’ll only get better

When you’re new to writing, it can be hard to write regularly, especially if you find yourself on the receiving end of more than a few rejection letters. However, continuing to write will do wonders for your skillset. Just from reviewing and refining your projects, you can improve exponentially. If you pay attention to feedback, continuous writing will help you put that feedback into practice, making you better at your craft with each new piece. And if you focus even a small amount of your energy on learning more about writing as you go along, your skills will only increase. Consistent practice may not make you perfect, but it will surely take you to the next level.

2) You’ll develop perseverance

Nothing fosters strong perseverance skills like actively pitching your writing. If you pitch a piece and don’t get a favorable response, use it as a chance to grow. Maybe that short story didn’t have enough character development, or maybe an article you wrote needed more in-depth research. Writing often requires multiple revisions, no matter what the project is.

Having to stick with one piece to revise and refine it, as well as pitching your work to multiple outlets on a regular basis, will help build your stamina. As time goes on, you’ll find that persevering through the rough patches becomes a natural reflex. As a writer, you have to expect that you’ll be knocked down many times, but that doesn’t matter as long as you get up and try again.

3) You’ll develop other skills along the way

Writing doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We often have to conduct countless types of research, observations, and experiments in order to get out whatever story is resting deep within. While you continue to write, you’ll enhance your analytical and research skills, become a more keen observer, and even collect lots of (totally useful) factoids! Maybe your main character is a philosopher, or you’re dead set on writing about true crime—each new project brings with it an opportunity to research a field that’s entirely new to you. Part of the fun of the craft is investigating how to make stories more effective, and the more you practice the skills related to writing, the more well-rounded a writer you’ll become.

4) You may learn to confront personal issues

Whether you’re writing a memoir, fiction, or just blogging, writing can bring many personal, deep-seated struggles up to the surface. Though it can be painful at times, it’s never a bad idea to explore some of these issues through the safe space of writing. Your fictional characters might take on a fight similar to yours, or you might decide to write a barefaced blog post as a form of catharsis. Either way, you’ll reap the benefits of writing through your struggles. Let your characters (even if that character is you) help heal your soul.

5) The world needs your story

New writers can easily get overwhelmed with the amount of writing there is out there in the world—and on the infinite abyss that is the internet. But don’t let what everyone else is doing deter you from writing your own stories. Collectively, we all contain an infinite number of stories and experiences. Another author may have written something similar to what you want to write about, but that doesn’t mean your story isn’t important or shouldn’t be told. The world needs good stories, no matter the medium or genre. Don’t hesitate to put yours out there.

In reality, writing isn’t easy, but who says it should be? Sometimes it’s all too tempting to give up out of frustration or dissatisfaction. On a good day you may be happy with your work but feel as if you’re writing into the void, and on bad days you may question why you ever wanted to be a writer in the first place. But no matter what challenges you meet, always keep in mind that you embarked on this journey for a reason.

Courtney Lazore is a writer and editor with a passion for languages, history, travel, and the arts. Though she writes across various genres, she’s currently focused on writing her first book about Korean pop music. You can find her at courtneylazore.com or on Twitter.  

The post #5onFri: Five Reasons New Writers Should Keep Writing appeared first on DIY MFA.

People have all sorts of positions and opinions about NaNo. Some people think that the word-count oriented, fast writing that NaNo encourages leads to sloppy writing. And they’re technically not wrong. When you’re pushing yourself and letting the words flow through you uninhibited, you’re probably going to end up with something of a mess by the end of it. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

It’s like Anne Lamott says in Bird by Bird, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft.”

The camp I fall into sees NaNo as a way to silence your inner critic and get the hard part of writing (the drafting) out of the way. The only way to improve at something is to practice it. And NaNo, for a lot of people, is a really intense form of practice. It’s a way to push your comfort zone and see what you’re really capable of. It’s a way to get your words out onto the page so that you can craft them into the story they’re meant to be.

Here are five ways NaNoWriMo makes you a better writer.

1) You practice working with deadlines.

Maybe you’re like me and you need a little extra accountability in your life to get you motivated. NaNo offers you a solid deadline (50,000 words in 30 days) as well as mini-deadlines (1,667 words per day) to help keep you on track. Nothing explodes and no one will shame you if you ultimately don’t make your deadline, but the public commitment to your writing adds a layer of accountability. Seeing a project through, and not giving yourself an excuse to be late with it, will help you be more successful in the writing world.

2) You push your limits.

Because the goal is so lofty, you’ll have to push yourself to write, even when you don’t really feel like it, even when the muse isn’t ready and waiting. You’ll have to plan some, and wing it on the days when the plan goes horribly wrong. Dedication and versatility are essential skills in your writer’s toolkit. Building those skills can be stressful and scary, but it can also be exhilarating and rewarding. You’ll be afraid you can’t make it and you’ll want to give up, but once you push past the initial fear you’ll find you can do more than you thought you were capable of.

3) You collect data on your writing process for 30 days.

Thirty days can seem like a long time, but it’s really not. You know how most people give up on New Year’s Resolutions before the year is half-over? NaNo offers you a shorter timeline for a reason. It’s not about permanently changing your habits, it’s about trying something radical for 30 days and finding out what you learn by the end of it. During those 30 days, experiment with writing in the morning or at night, in private or in a public place like a café, with music or without. The possibilities are endless! And by the end, you should know what makes you the most successful and productive version of your writerly self.

4) You shut out your inner critic.

No, you have to shut out your inner critic. When you’re writing 1,667 words a day, especially if you have a day job, you have a limited amount of time to spend getting the words on the page. You have no time for your inner critic to worry about whether the quality of your writing is up to par or whether that plot point is cheesy. In NaNo there’s no deleting. So if you read what you wrote the day before and hate it, that’s ok. The words are written. They still count. You can work on them in December. There’s a time and a place to critique and edit your work, but not in the drafting phase, especially if it keeps you from making solid progress.

5) You become fluent in your story’s world.

The best way to become fluent in a foreign language is to immerse yourself in it. When you have no other options for communication, you learn more quickly how to convey your meaning and your ideas to those around you in the language that they speak. Well consider NaNoWriMo your immersion into the world of your story. For thirty days you can eat, breathe, sleep, dream your story and the characters that inhabit it. By the end of thirty days, you will know your story and characters inside and out. You’ll probably have tried a few things that didn’t work, but you’ll also have tried some things that did. You learn how to communicate for your characters, to tell their story, understand it, and even enjoy it.

At the end of 30 days, you’ll have a giant pile of 50,000 words (or more!) to show for your effort. Sure, it’s probably not perfect, but that was never the point of NaNo. You’ll have proved to yourself and your inner critic that you can do this thing called ‘novel writing’. And you’ll have honed your skills as a writer. You’ll know your writerly sweet spots (how many words per minute/hour/day/week you can do comfortably, what time of day you write best, etc.). Most importantly, you’ll know your story better than you ever did before.

Elisabeth Kauffman is a freelance editor in California. Her favorite genres are YA fantasy, sci-fi, and romance. She regularly obsesses over board games, Doctor Who, and Harry Potter. Come share your ideas with her on Facebook and Twitter and on the web at www.writingrefinery.com. Also, check out her author website and her author page on Facebook.

The post 5OnFri: Five Ways NaNoWriMo Makes You a Better Writer appeared first on DIY MFA.

Today I am pleased to have Teddy Wayne on the show.

Teddy  is the author of several books, most recently his novel Loner, which is out now. Teddy has won numerous writing awards, is regular contributor to several prestigious publications, and has taught at Columbia University in NYC and Washington University in St. Louis.

In this interview, we talk about Teddy’s newest book and the craft behind bringing an anti-hero to life on the page. During the episode, we geek out about anti-heroes, Hitchcock movies, and how trying to understand reprehensible characters can help expand our humanity. Listen below.

In this episode we discuss:

• What writers can learn about crafting an anti-hero from the TV show All in the Family, and how to create a character who is deeply flawed but also relatable.
• How much of an anti-hero’s character is shaped by internal qualities versus environmental or situational factors.
• How to avoid making an anti-hero seem over-simplified and make readers feel connected to an evil character.
• The difference between an extraordinary character’s slow descent into darkness, and a regular character making a terrible choice and having to “fix” the situation.
• The two components that writers can infuse into literary fiction to make it come to life and hook readers.

Plus, Teddy’s #1 tip for writers.

About the Teddy Wayne

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A columnist for the New York Times, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and McSweeney’s and has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in New York.

To learn more about Teddy and his books, visit his website at TeddyWayne.com.

About LONER

(As with most books we recommend on DIY MFA, the links below are Amazon affiliate links. This means if you choose to purchase via these links, DIY MFA gets a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for supporting DIY MFA!)

With the same knack for voice and piercing social commentary Wayne gave readers in The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and Kapitoil, LONER is a riveting, frighteningly believable portrait of obsession on a college campus. Much like Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, Herman Koch’s The Dinner, and Charlotte Rogan’s The Lifeboat—and, further back, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Lolita, and Notes from Underground—it is one of those rare novels where, as the pages fly by, readers feel everything from fear to rage to empathy for characters they might not like, but nevertheless find completely mesmerizing.

Wayne’s New York Times column the last couple of years, “Future Tense,” has demonstrated his critical talents for dissecting the alienating effects of contemporary culture, and LONER continues this with the misfit David Federman at the center of the novel. An academically gifted yet painfully forgettable member of his New Jersey high school class, the withdrawn, mild-mannered freshman arrives at Harvard fully expecting to be embraced by a new tribe of high-achieving peers. But, initially, his social prospects seem unlikely to change.

Then Veronica Morgan Wells enters his life. Immediately struck by her beauty, wit, and sophisticated Manhattan upbringing, David falls feverishly in love with the woman he sees as an embodiment of what he’s always wanted to be: popular, attractive, powerful. Determined to stop at nothing to win her attention and an invitation into her glamorous world, he begins compromising his moral standards. But both Veronica and David, it turns out, are not exactly as they seem.

Links & Resources

Link to Episode 117

(Right-click to download.)

Check out these previous podcast episodes talking about systematic and deliberate practice in writing. These interview share some great insights about how to practice as a writer.

• Episode 61: How to Write Spellbinding Sentences – Interview with Barbara Baig DIYMFA.com/061
• Episode 89: The Power of Deliberate Practice – Interview with Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool DIYMFA.com/089

If you want to go even further and learn more about focused practice, check out these two books:

• Spellbinding Sentences by Barbara Baig
• Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 117: The Slow Descent of the Anti-Hero — Interview with Teddy Wayne appeared first on DIY MFA.

In this book, they delve into the subject of expertise and try to figure out how some people can achieve excellence in a field through deliberate practice. This is a timely topic, especially in light of our new Storytelling Superpower Quiz here at DIY MFA. After all, what makes one writer amazing at their craft and another writer mediocre? And what can you do to improve your skills and increase your odds of success? That’s what today’s episode is all about.

Today, I speak with Anders and Robert about what deliberate practice actually looks like, and how writers can use similar techniques to master their craft and take their writing from average to awesome.

In this episode Anders, Robert, and I discuss:

• The biggest myths about talent.
• How to beef up your brain.
• The ceiling of achievement.
• The components of deliberate practice.

Plus, Anders’ and Robert’s  #1 tip for writers.

Resources

Anders Ericsson is a Conradi Eminent Scholar and Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, where he studies how people become experts in various fields like music, chess, nursing, law enforcement and sports. More important, he looks at how expert performers achieve excellence by acquiring specific, complex cognitive mechanisms–ways of training their brain–through extended, deliberate practice. To learn more about Anders check out his list of scholarly publications.

Robert Pool is a nonfiction writer specializing in science and technology and has worked as staff for both Science and Nature. He is the author of three previous books before co-authoring this one with Anders Ericsson. For more info, you can follow Robert’s Amazon Author page.

Link to Episode 89

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, leave a review, and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available. Also, if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please share!

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 89: The Power of Deliberate Practice – Interview with Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool appeared first on DIY MFA.