inspiration Archives - Page 12 of 23 - Trisha Sugarek, Author, Playwright & Poet

More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #16

Why momentum is more important than quality. Blasphemy, right? Wrong. Momentum is more important, in this writer’s opinion, than quality.

The writer with momentum is an author who is MOVING FORWARD. Writing every day, six or seven days a week, if only a page or two a day.

The writer who is so stuck on ‘quality’ that they have only written one book in their life time, and they are still writing it, is the writer who is not moving forward or growing. If you only write one or two words a day, your manuscript is moving forward.

Many writers, who believe as I do, say that if you leave a project for a month, six months, a year, it is likely that you will never go back to it. And during that time the doubt creeps in: “who do I think I am?” “I’ll never be a great writer.” “I’m no good at this.” “My mother was right, I’ll never amount to anything….” “how good could I possibly be?” “I should go get a day job.” “How dare I?”

Remember, Quality gets layered in, draft by draft. Some newbie writers think that the first draft should be perfect. Sorry, that’s simply not the case. You’ve heard me say over and over: ‘that’s what rewrites are for.’
Quality is a multi-draft proposition. Momentum is the only thing that will get you a FIRST DRAFT!

“Write until it becomes as natural as breathing. Write until NOT writing makes you anxious.” Unknown

“The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say.” Anais Nin

“When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending.” Brene Brown

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! September’s author will be Joseph Drumheller and October: Author, Lisa Jackson. November’s author will be best selling author, Grace Burrowes

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More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #15

When characters stroll into your story….LET THEM! I just completed an interview with FreshFiction.com and was relating to her that several characters had walked into my story (Song of the Yukon) and I welcomed them in. It happens to me frequently. They contribute interesting tributaries to my main story stream. Even though I had to stop and do some extra research it was so WORTH IT!

Keep writing, my fellow writers!

‘This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap.’~~George Bernard Shaw

‘An original writer is not one who imitates nobody, but one whom nobody can imitate.’ Francois Rene De Chateaubriand

‘I’m not the heroic type, really. I was beaten up by Quakers.’ ~Woody Allen
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! September’s author will be Joseph Drumheller and October: Author, Lisa Jackson. November’s author will be best selling author, Grace Burrowes Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers!
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More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #14

How to Love Not Hate Rewrites

A writer has to find a way to love rewrites. No matter how good you are writing your first draft I guarantee you will find an awkward sentence structure, typos, a section that is not germane to your story. Best of all, if you’re like me, you’ll discover extra content when you explore some unfinished business in your story.

Love those rewrites! You’ll have a better book for it!

“Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that’s not working. Just pare it down until it’s a beautiful thing you can hand in, probably late, to your editor.”~~ Kurt Loder

“More than a half, maybe as much as two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.”~~ John Irving

“Artistry is important. Skill, hard work, rewriting, editing, and careful, careful craft: All of these are necessary. These are what separate the beginners from experienced artists.”~~ Sarah Kay

Sign up for my blog and receive your ‘Motivational Moments‘ twice a week! Simple: type your email address in the box on my Home page (top/right). Click on ‘subscribe’.

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! September’s author will be Joseph Drumheller and October: Author, Lisa Jackson. Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #13

Is your process the right or wrong way?

As I write my story I make notes, on the last page of my document, about story ideas within the story, lest I forget. We all have such interesting processes, none of them wrong. The important thing is to write EVERY DAY. Good, bad or ugly you must write to become a writer.

I’m certain that my style would drive some writers crazy. I’m what’s known as a ‘pantser’. I write by the seat of my pants. No story outline because I want to experience that magical moment when my characters take over. I never try to wrest the story away from my characters. No plot line because who knows where my story will end up? No character list because new characters are always walking into my story. Why would I keep that door slammed in their faces? And I try to never ‘force it’. If I run dry on one project, I switch to another and wait for the story to pile up in my head.

“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.”
– Somerset Maugham

This from Charles Bukowski on forcing your story, “...too much just doing it for the sake of doing it? Just not waiting for the words to pile up inside and then explode of their own volition.”

“It’s none of their business that you had to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” – Ernest Hemingway
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! A long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) September’s author will be Joseph Drumheller and October: Andrew Snook. Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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Motivational Moments…for Writers! #12

How to Write Rich Characters.

After many years of writing, my characters show up in my head but it’s my job to ‘flesh them out,’ breathe life into them. Many times I will meet or see a character in real life and they inspire a character in my storytelling. If you’re a new writer take the time to write it down. It’s not the same as a few random thoughts about your character. Some intangible thing happens when I put pen to paper and get to know who my character is.

Read through your story and write down EVERYTHING the other characters say about the character you are creating. These exercises do not have to show up in your book. They are merely ways to research and explore who your characters are. When I am editing and rewriting I am looking for additional ways to bring my characters to life.

I keep asking myself about the character’s motivations, goals, and needs.

“One of the things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. Something more will arise for later, something better.”
— Annie Dillard

“A director becomes a diplomatist, a financier, a pedagogue, a top sergeant, a wet nurse, and a martyr, the kind of martyr who used to be torn into pieces by wild horses galloping in all directions at once.” ~Margaret Webster, Stage Director (This quote SO applies to writers, I thought I would include it.)

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More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #11

I had a friendly debate with another author when she responded to my Stephen King’s quote about ‘plot being the the last resort of bad writers.’ One of her comments to me was, “writers have to accept that their readers might not care as much about your characters as you do.”

My vehement answer was, if my readers don’t care as much as I do, then I haven’t done my job. I just finished reading a book by a new (to me) author and I found her characters boring and unsympathetic. She didn’t tell me enough about them through dialogue and description for me to care. I suspect that since this was a series, she was relying too heavily on her readers already knowing her characters from previous books. Big mistake! Even with a series, each book, and character, must be able to stand alone.

Writers! You have to know your characters in order for your readers to know and care about them. With the most despicable villain, you must give your readers something to love about that character.

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” Elisabeth Kabler-Ross

“When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.” Rollo May
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! A long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) September’s author will be Joseph Drumheller and October: Andrew Snook. Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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More Motivational Moments…For Writers! #9

Jump Start your Writing Day with Motivational Moments

Plot: I am currently finishing my newest novel and I have to tell you; the loosely built plot that I had envisioned when I began is gone by the way-side. Way, way off and into the forest, in fact. About half way through the characters took me on a journey, making their own decisions, loving who they wanted to love, building their homesteads their way. When this happens to me I welcome their story line in…they know better than I do at that point. My characters write a better story than I ever could.

“The last thing I want to do is spoil a book with plot. I think a plot is the last resort of bad writers. I’m a lot more interested in characters and situations; following where it goes. In Cujo I was as surprised as my readers when the little kid died at the end.” Stephen King

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Robert Frost

Sign up for my blog and receive your ‘Motivational Moments‘ twice a week! Simple: type your email address in the box on my Home page (top/right). Click on ‘subscribe’.

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek

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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! A long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) Best selling author, Robyn Carr is July’s author. Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers! on YouTube!

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More Motivational Moments…for Writers! #8

Writers! Jump-start your day with more Motivational Moments!

“….you have to be willing to write crap. You have to write all the time whether it’s any good or not. You can always delete or revise or rewrite but if you wait until it feels perfect, you’ll never accomplish anything. You have to fill up pages with words and keep moving forward…”

My interview with bestselling author Robyn Carr began yesterday ( she was so generous with her time and thoughts it became a 3 parter) and she said this in the context of the post. I couldn’t have said it better so I borrowed it! Thanks, Robyn!

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.” Kurt Vonnegut

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.” Kahlil Gibran

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” Edgar Allan Poe

Sign up for my blog and receive your ‘Motivational Moments‘ twice a week! Simple: type your email address in the box on my Home page (top/right). Click on ‘subscribe’.

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek

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A Chip Off the Old Bukowski Block

My efforts have lain elsewhere of late…re-energized with my most ambitious novel, Song of the Yukon and maintaining a blog that is a never ending job.

But this poetry came to me, as it often does, with no apparent rhyme or reason. I had just been reading some Bukowski and he always inspires
me. I don’t suggest that I am even on the same planet as Hank, with regard to poetry, but I do admire his harsh, poetry reality.
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i sit here on the toilet
looking at the cane by my side
when did this happen?

its pronged feet could, at any moment,
scamper into a tidal pool, so much does it
remind me of a robotic crab

my mornings now consist of pills,
shuffling to the next room,
with the aid of my robotic crab
to pour cereal
then work up a shit before I can
leave the house
When did this happen?

bodily functions take priority as
I can no longer trust this body not
to embarrass me in public
when did this happen?

my knees are shot to hell
my bowels rumble and twist
my arthritis tears at me with sharp little teeth
my vision is perfect, cataracts
blasted away by another robot
when did this happen?

the other day my mind went on a holiday
leaving me behind, confused and blank,
frightened
is this a harbinger of what’s to come
when did this happen?

Have you discovered my regular postings: Motivational Moments…for Writers?

“An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.” Charles Bukowski

My INTERVIEW with Bukowski
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DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS featuring INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! In April, a long awaited interview with Kathleen Grissom (The Kitchen House) Michael Saad, Canadian author, was June’s author. Robyn Carr is July’s author. Check out Motivational Moments…for Writers!

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More Motivational Moments….for Writers! #7

Writers! Jump-start your day with more Motivational Moments!

You know a story has been rattling around in your brain. TODAY is the day you will find time to sit down and write the first sentence, the first page, the first chapter. Don’t worry about what will follow. The story will lead you. If you are very lucky your characters will take over and tell you their story.

‘It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.’ William Faulkner

“Writing is a Tryst with the imagination and a love affair with words.” Unknown

“The reader, the book lover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt

Sign up for my blog and receive your ‘Motivational Moments‘ twice a week! Simple: type your email address in the box on my Home page (top/right). Click on ‘subscribe’.

‘As a writer, I marinate, speculate and hibernate.’ Trisha Sugarek

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