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Writerly Things…2/12/16

Traci Kenworth

 

This week, I learned the importance of a good book and why finding one can inspire you to great things in your writing. In blogs a few days ago, I read a book called The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. I had been looking for direction in my YA Fantasy and I found it in the battle between the forces of Light and Dark in the book. This book took hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I anxiously counted the minutes until I could get back to it. That’s what I hope to do with my readers, pull them in, and keep them involved even when they have to do other things. I want that page-turner feel. How does one go about doing so? They have to have mesmerizing characters, a good plot, and a little gift of magic as I call it.

How do you find this magic? It’s deep within you. It should call to you every time you sit down to write, every chapter, every adventure you take your characters on. It’s that voice that says, “This time, you’ve got something.” Follow that and you just may go from unpublished to published writer. It’s finding the faith in yourself to go on despite everything. I know it’s not always easy to do this writing thing. Lord knows, I’ve wanted to turn back plenty of times. But I keep on. Because of that magic, because I want to bring to my readers that promise that this world could be, these characters could breathe somewhere, this really could be happening.

I think that’s why all the best published writers say, “You’ve got to read A LOT.” You have to catch that bug, that essence of story-telling. You need it to survive the ups and downs of writing, imo. The more I’ve read this past year and the start of this year, the more I’ve discovered a LOVE of reading I haven’t felt since I was a child loosed into school library and then again as a teen in the local library branch. I learned things, I took adventures, I laughed and cried. All this reading is a TICKET to writing. Good writing inspires readers to take that leap, to discover. It’s all out there waiting for us to just open a book, read on a reading device of your choice.

And what we take away is a GOLD MINE of how it’s done. So, yes: READ far and widely, things you like, things you never thought of, take a chance. You just might discover some magic to bring home to your own writing.