I'm new here, and relieved that a writing group exists here at DU.

[Mike 03]

I should begin by expressing my appreciation.

I'm not sure what to say, except for the first time in years I've felt like a writer again. I feel that I want to get back to writing after years of feeling lost, frustrated and confused. I wanted to abandon it and move onto something else. Other than a few idle essays and random scrawlings in journals, I have not written a novel since 2006.

But I feel the need to correspond with other writers, meet other writers.

I used to write eight to twelve hours a day, but I just burned out. I used to wake up and care. Care about getting to the keyboard. The last thing I wrote, that I was proud of, was three years ago, and I showed it to two people.

If you have been a writer, but lost your way, and were trying to find it back: any advice?

How do you know if your desire to return to writing is real, or just another false start?

My fear has been that I burnt myself out, but I'm not old enough to be burnt out.

I feel I lost my way, and I'm not sure how or why, but I feel like maybe I'm finding my way back, but I don't want this to turn out to be a tease.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Well mike, I had a dry spell of over two years

close to

Trying to write what I can't, fantasy

The gaming universe, I started getting images, scenes, full character sketches, waking up in the middle of the night... scenes getting sharp

Finally surrendered and my god I got the first draft in nine days... background... notes, you kid me right? It was that sharp, still is that sharp

Going over the sixth draft these days... and it should be ready to send to publishers soon

Trying to get the third novel in the universe through regular publisher, if not... will self publish again

On and some self marketing, if you go to the Deistgames site, the last two free stellar clarions, have articles on craft, free for the taking, and the blog has quite a bit of my observations on craft (and game design) At times one and the same

www.deistgames.com

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. All I know about writing is

if you don't feel like doing it, you don't do it.

Do something else.

I had a friend, a novelist named Walker Percy. His advice to people who found they couldn't write was:

"If you can't write, walk.

If you can't walk, read.

If you can't read, go to a movie.

If there are no movies, go somewhere and help someone who has a real problem."

Walker was quite the pragmatist, and I miss him a lot.

[MorningGlow]

3. I like that advice better than the usual

"You MUST write for X hours a day no matter what, and if you write crap, at least you're writing." That always struck me as counterproductive--at least for me. I know that if I wrote and wrote and wrote and came up with garbage or mostly garbage, I'd get sick of what I was writing and I'd be more inclined to abandon it after a while. It's tough being a writer by trade, because sometimes the stuff is just "not there". I will try to write, but if the words don't come after a while, I give up and try again when the muse strikes. Otherwise I'm just spinning my wheels and wasting time.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. The biggest laugh

I ever got out of my agent was during a conversation at a time when I was feeling mighty guilty about not working on the proofs and getting them back to my publisher - although I always get them in well before deadline, a point of pride. I was just stuck, and said to her, "I think I'll just sit down with it at ten tomorrow morning and stay there for four hours, and get it done."

She laughed and laughed and laughed, to the point where she was starting to piss me off.

You know, the kind of pissed-off when someone close to you calls you out on something really stupid you either said or did?

Then she said, "If I could draw up a scenario in which you would never write another good word, I'd put you on a schedule like that."

Eventually, I sat down with the proofs and in a couple of days, they were done and they were perfect. It was the eleven-page editorial letter that scared me, but, in the end, it was the most brilliant road map I could have had for my own work. That's the genius of a good editor - she (mine is a she) sees your work clearly, in a way you cannot. But, I had to be ready to do it. There's no forcing, not with fiction, anyway.

When I hear of someone writing for eight hours a day, all I think is that s/he will maybe end up with a workable paragraph that day. Or else they're diarists, exorcising demons. Writing like that is great therapy.

Writing, I believe, is what you do while you're living your life....................

[catrose]

5. I went to school in the town where Percy lived

He was a friend of my English teacher, and she assigned us his books to read and brought him to class to speak to us. He was the first writer I ever saw up close and personal, very gracious, very sharp. He started off by saying we should tell our parents that he had nothing to do with the cover artwork of The Last Gentleman. Having read it, we knew it wasn't about ghostly young women in lingerie. Probably some were disappointed.

His daughter Anne also went to that school, but she was several years behind me; so I can't claim to know her.

Later my brother told me that he was a persona non grata in that little Louisiana town because they saw so much of themselves in Love in the Ruins.

Just sharing memories...I'll take his advice about writing. Or not writing. I notice walking comes before reading. I'm trying to finish a story this weekend. Wish me luck.