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Shakespeare just wrote as himself, and you should too. While trying to emulate another famous writer can be useful as an exercise (just as an artist might copy the Mona Lisa as a “study”), that approach is never useful in creating or advancing your own art.<\/p>\n
Sure, read what other write, dissect their work, and practice their techniques – even in your own creations, but ONLY if those techniques also fit your own personality and style.\u00a0\u00a0 The best way to achieve Writer’s Block is to try and write like someone else.\u00a0 When you do, you are hobbling your Muse; locking her in irons.\u00a0 You are trying to play a role for which you are unsuited.<\/p>\n
Of course we all want to be beloved successful writers, but we are not all going to be.\u00a0 You are only as good as you own talent – GET OVER IT!<\/p>\n
Why are you writing in the first place?\u00a0 To make a buck?\u00a0 To make a name for yourself?\u00a0 Or perhaps, just perhaps (Lord help us) because you actually like writing?\u00a0 Or maybe, just maybe, because you want<\/em> to like writing, but don’t, try as you may?<\/p>\n Fact is, while money and fame are good motivators for any career, be it singing, dancing, playing a sport or writing, if they are the Prime Motivators, you won’t have a very good time doing it, whatever “it” is.<\/p>\n The Wise Man famously said, “Work at what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”\u00a0 The important aspect here is that he didn’t expect to become a famous wise man when he said it.\u00a0 It just occurred to him as part of his personally satisfying manner of thinking.\u00a0 Just as it occurs to me to say, “Don’t blame the weather – its’ only humid.”<\/p>\n Now that clever little phrase is never going to make me rich OR famous.\u00a0 But I did have a really enjoyable time telling it to you.\u00a0 And that, dear readers, is the very essence of the writing life to which we should all aspire.<\/p>\n Unless you truly enjoy laboring over a single book for your entire life, word by word, with endless rewrites and improvements, then just write it out as you feel it.\u00a0 Plot doesn’t make sense?\u00a0\u00a0Come back to it later when you know your story better.\u00a0 Characters dull and derivative?\u00a0 You’re not going to fix them by micromanaging them.<\/p>\n Give it up and get on with it.\u00a0 Write endlessly.\u00a0 Write until your fingers fall off.\u00a0 Keep an archive somewhere to put all the stuff the world should never see and then post the bulk of the rest on your blog.\u00a0 (You DO have a blog, don’t you?\u00a0 All real<\/em> writers have a blog…..)\u00a0 And for those gems – the occasional piece that just zings and sings and hits the mark – well those you send off to a publisher, magazine or agent.<\/p>\n If you’re looking for gold, you won’t find as much by sifting the same sand through a finer and finer mesh as you will by marching from one dig to the next in search of nuggets.\u00a0 So be prolific, knock the blocks out from under your tires, throw open the stop-cocks and let loose the dogs of words.<\/p>\n Melanie Anne Phillips<\/a> ~ Creator, StoryWeaver<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n
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