Why You Need To Rise and Write

The time to dream, to talk and skirt around this issue is finished. Today, we act. We write. But first, where is your voice? Harness it this 2020...

If ever there was a time for writers to rise, it is now. If ever there was a time to sing, to pen a poem, pen a novel, pen a short story, release books, it is now.

It is now.

“"If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison

You must write your truth. Your reality. Or you can be content with others writing about you. Do you have gifts with words? Use it. Empower others with your words. Your stories. A book does not exist in our minds. A book exists only when it is published. I love to go to writer's websites and fuel my inspiration on how to write. I was wasting my time. My energy. My inspiration. It is only when we see things inked on paper that we find that fantasy visionary world manifested into fruition. By the way, my book cover is an artwork by Maria Wiehler-Rova, a very talented Nadi-based artist and a masi backdrop that is distinctively Fijian. It was important for me to have a Fijian artwork on my cover as my stories are based on indigenous Fijian (iTaukei) characters. This will be published in February 2020.

Where can I find it?

We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. ..... Joyce Carol Oates

You already are inspired. It's already there in you. Use it. First, you need to get your butt on the chair and not stand up until it is written. Until a story is penned. Until a story is finished. You must.

Notice how I am punctuating my words in minimal form because there is no rhetoric way about this. Writing is writing. You string together words on the white blank page and continue on until a story is formed. It's that simple. I consider all those who publish something as writers (even if they haven't published anything). A person who writes and is published in an anthology anywhere is a writer, whether he sees himself as otherwise. I think everyone who devotes sometime to write need to be comfortable with that title and vocation/hobby first before working on other written pieces.

Find your voice

It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort..... Joyce Carol Oates

The good thing about our Fijian marketplace is that there are just a few writers in our landscapes. Let's admit it, we contend ourselves with the short form like blogging and the occasional podcasts or poems here and there. My stories were accepted and appeared in both Samoan and Guamanian publications. I'm waiting for the year when it will appear in a Fijian publication. But you see, these are scatterings of literary material that could be collated together with other words to be published in a book form. Thus, the idea of my own short-story collection. It will be out in 2020.

Show up to your writing space

If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space...... Joyce Carol Oates

I think this bit is easy. You will need to develop a habit, a ritual over your writing time. This is the space where you can call your own and no one should disturb you from this space until you have at least 500 words or 1000 words penned for the day whether it is prose, blogging or poetry writing. In this age of great distraction, our phones, the social media are great distractors to the craft. Put all these on silent mode and endeavour to write in one sitting if you are penning a short-story.

I love what Joyce Carol Oates mentioned here:

I have forced myself to begin writing when I've been utterly exhausted, when I've felt my soul as thin as a playing card…and somehow the activity of writing changes everything...... ....Joyce Carol Oates

Watch a lot of movies or TV series

There's something about watching TV series, it is shaped like a short-story. And if you love writing short stories, you'll need to love watching these short series. Find out ways in which the writer has designed the series and kept you on tenterhooks or on the edge for more. That is classic writing. If you love novels, watch full movies and see how they bring the world to our eyes. They are a classic mechanics of showing not telling techniques. I believe with those interested in novel writing, first you'll need to perfect the short craft of short story writing. See ways in which you can plot the story.

Read a lot

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.......Joyce Carol Oates

There's no other explanation to this. If you wish to write, you've got to read tonnes of books and in multiple genres. I try and read a number of genres from fiction to non-fiction variety and look for the writer's style of putting his or her ideas across to the audience. If I particularly liked a book, I would go back and examine his or her style of writing for behind every book, there is a mechanical style that the writer has engaged to entertain us.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read...... Joyce Carol Oates

Find a good editor

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings. ― Stephen King

I thought I had my collection done after I assigned it to a couple of editors online. They did a lousy job. I did a lousy job too and in the midst of being eager to share my words, I did not wait until it is time to be shared publicly. Some of those grammatical errors that should have been spotted were very much glaring on the pages after I read it again. After it had been formatted online. I am cringing now because I had circulated it to a number of trusted friends to review it. I had to apologise to them as the manuscript was still half-cooked. And when it is on that stage, it cannot be devoured. Grammar and tenses need to be spotless and flawless. Get an editor who can do that or a friend , who's very good at spotting things grammatically. The thing is, readers won't be bowled over by your content but they'll be the first to spot some lazy and careless errors. And that is how you and I will be measured on a public space. As a writer, we owe our readers the best of who we are. I understood this concept and delaying my launch until 2020.

Start publishing

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be. ― Margaret Atwood

I will devote another page on this. But that is very clear, once you have a flawless manuscript grammatically and plot-lines are meticulously executed, you are now in a space to publish your work publicly. I take my friends' critiques very seriously and see whether it is justified. When it is, I go back to the script and dust on it until it shines. Now you have many outlets, but for those who are starting out, you can use the Self Publishing tools on Amazon. I will share later on this on how I used this tool. Let's get this sorted, if you are writing, you need readers and an audience. Your words should not exist in a vacuum. Those ideas are like sparks, a flame, it needs to be read so we run along with your ideas.

Few thoughts...

A book versus a blog. It doesn't really take a lot of time to make up our mind which one is weighty. We can write blogs till kingdom come but there is the book that will take up space in people's hearts.

When a book leaves its author's desk it changes. Even before anyone has read it, before eyes other than its creator's have looked upon a single phrase, it is irretrievably altered. It has become a book that can be read, that no longer belongs to its maker. It has acquired, in a sense, free will. It will make its journey through the world and there is no longer anything the author can do about it. Even he, as he looks at its sentences, reads them differently now that they can be read by others. They look like different sentences. The book has gone out into the world and the world has remade it. ― Salman Rushdie

First, find your voice. Revel in it. Tinker around with that voice and see what you can come up with. But first, you need to sit and pen those thoughts into existence. There's a lot of cacophony of voices out thee that seek to drown out your own. Seek to silence it. Focus. Write. Write some more till you have established a pattern. A habit. A ritual.

Choose to write not tomorrow. Not next month. Not next year. Write NOW.

Explore your voice. Keep on writing until it is as clear as water.

Good luck!