“I’m sorry. I can’t mess this up…” “I was devastated.”
These are the now world-famous words of Grammy Award winner Adele, who showed the
world that even in front of millions of people, it’s better to stop, start over and do it right rather than forge ahead with a mistake.
What a perfect lesson for writers: Don’t be afraid to start over to get it right.
Because getting it right is far more important than just getting it out there.
It can be frustrating – even “devastating”, as Adele said – to realize that you have to either scrap all the hard work you’ve put into your novel and start over or that you need to make major revisions in order to get the story right.
And that’s where many authors find themselves at a triple crossroads:
- Do you throw up your hands and chuck it all?
- Decide your time is too valuable to invest in making the necessary changes and just forge ahead with something that’s less than the best you can do?
- Or take a break and a deep breath and dive into a rewrite?
What if Adele had thrown up her hands when she started on that wrong note and denied the audience her tribute to George Michael? Or if she had just continued off-key and given the world far less than she was capable of?
If a writer decides it’s too much work to fix plot holes, character/story inconsistencies, tie up loose ends, correct dialogue – you get the idea – then they’re not giving the world their best. And putting your best out there is well worth the effort.
how time consuming and frustrating it can be searching online for the right fit, spending precious time clicking and clicking when you’d rather be writing and submitting.
book, and that includes song lyrics – even just one line of a song. Someone wrote those words and published them, just like authors write and publish books, and they get royalties from them. I’m sure you wouldn’t “borrow” a page from a JK Rowling novel without expecting to get sued, right? Song lyrics are the same thing, only instead of an entire paragraph or page of someone else’s writing, you’re borrowing the equivalent (because songs are shorter) – a line or a stanza.
How do you know if a song is under copyright protection?
Do you plan your writing out with outlines, character development exercises, and other pre-writing activities? Or do you just write as it comes to you?
There are few interesting things that can be said about my home town. I grew up in a mildly racist country town in the Santa Barbara mountains, though I am hopeful that things have changed there. Having grown up during the great migrant issues of California during the 80’s and 90’s, I was able to experience some of the issues when I was getting my higher education in university. The biggest part of my life was finding my self-identity, which was never truly clear to me as a youth.
A. Claire Everward takes the world far too seriously. Passionate and sensitive to her surroundings, she takes it all to heart, sometimes too much so. but it makes her fight for what she believes in. She is direct, although she tries not to be, at least not always. Like every artist she has her quirks, some understand them and some don’t. She prefers to keep to herself and spend time with her characters, and for her escaping into writing is always the best refuge. She would say it maintains her sanity but her sister Kate says that sanity does tend to be overrated.
When A. Claire Everward said all she wants to do was write, her sister Kate Anne decided she would use her ten-year PR and marketing experience to start a publishing company that would support it as a business.
After ten years working as a PR expert specializing in crisis and reputation management, voicing other people’s thoughts and needs and making sure they got what they want, Kate knew it was time for a change. She’d always been a dreamer, a bookworm who escaped to her imagination when things got tough, and when her sister, another bookworm (they got it from their bookworm mother) came to her and told her she wanted to be a writer, and already had stories and books to show her, Kate decided to help her dream come true.
Ben Starling is passionate about marine conservation and boxing, both central themes in his upcoming novel. His interest in marine life has taken him across three continents over the past three decades. He is Oxford’s only ever quintuple boxing Blue (varsity champion five years running), was Captain of the university boxing team, and coached and competed until a few years ago. He is 6’3”and 192 lbs. Ben graduated with a Master of Arts and a Master of Philosophy. He was born in the USA but has lived in the UK since childhood.
across her shoulder, angled over her small chest.
Joshua currently lives in Alaska with his wife and children. In 1999, he began crafting the world for Thrice Nine Legends, including Melkorka and Anaerfell. He is also the author of the A Midwinter Sellsword and Gladiators and Thieves in the Hawkhurst Saga. His short story, Grimsdalr, is inspired by the tale of Beowulf.