Valerie Comer
Writing Stick-to-it-ive-ness! (Guest post by Valerie Comer)
Have you ever wanted something so much that you spent a decade learning how to do it with no guarantee you’d ever be successful. . . whatever that means?
Janet’s theme on this site is “tenacity.” It’s vital in so many areas of life. Sometimes we call it stubbornness, but tenacity and diligence sound so much more positive. Either way, it’s the ability to set a goal and dig your heels in until you’ve achieved it.
In 2002 I decided to learn to write fiction. Hours every day had suddenly opened up with nothing to fill them. I’d always toyed with the idea of writing a novel “someday,” and knew this was a God-given opportunity to take the next step. Actually the first step.
Only, I had no idea what that step was. How-to-write books from the library were of little help, but the relatively new Internet pointed to some sites where I could learn. And learn I did. I averaged one novel a year for nine years before I finally sold a novella (ironically unwritten at time of sale), and I’ve written two more since. Over half of these are unsalvageable drafts with huge problems.
The biggest hurdles for me were two-fold.
1. I had no concept of the over-all process. I couldn’t see the steps. You know the cliché “can’t see the forest for the trees?” Well, I couldn’t even see the trees for the twigs. I got bogged down in the minutiae of writing and struggled to find the horizon.
2. I thought writers were either seat-of-the-pants writers (pantsers) or plotters. It took me a long time to “get” that there was a large middle ground in which most writers live. Thus it took me about ten too many novels to find the best practices for me. Now I know better than to tell anyone “this is the way it must be done.”
This spring it seemed the time had come to pay forward and help other, newer writers develop their craft, so I opened a website, To Write a Story, dedicated to teaching fiction from beginning to end. It seems to me that there are six stages in writing: planning, plotting, writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. My goal is to provide an overview of each stage so that writers can keep the forest in mind while they’re focused on those twigs.
I’ve chosen a two-prong approach:
1. It’s a blog. I post a helpful article every Thursday on one of the six stages. Most of them are written by me, but I accept a small number of guest posts, too.
2. It’s a course. Writers can sign up in the sidebar for my FREE writing course via email. You’ll get a new lesson every week for the better part of a year, walking you through the process from beginning to end.
If you’ve ever wondered just what all is involved in writing fiction, I invite you to subscribe to the course (and/or the blog) and join the 70+ people (about one a day since I opened the course) who are already enrolled. We’re having a lot of fun and I think you will, too!
Want to learn To Write a Story? Then join in!
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Valerie Comer’s life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their creation-care-centric church. She only hopes her characters enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.
Valerie writes Farm Lit with the voice of experience laced with humor. Raspberries and Vinegar, first in her series A Farm Fresh Romance, releases August 1, 2013, from Choose NOW Publishing.
