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Monalisa Foster

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April 2015

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Monalisa Foster Not everyone who is nice to you is your friend, and not everyone who is mean to you is your enemy. This is especially true when it comes to writers an…moreNot everyone who is nice to you is your friend, and not everyone who is mean to you is your enemy. This is especially true when it comes to writers and writing. You will inevitably run into criticisms that hurt your feelings and it's natural to have a knee-jerk reaction to them. No one likes to hear that their baby is ugly.

There is nothing easier in the world than telling a writer "I liked it. Keep writing." It costs nothing. And some people may mean it. "I liked it" is about as subjective as it gets. I like chocolate. So what? "Keep writing" may sound just like the encouragement you want to hear, but is it? Or is it a cop-out? The writer can't get mad at the person saying this. It's such a safe answer that it too has little or no meaning. When it comes to feedback, I like to dig a little deeper.

Think about it. You've asked someone for their help on something. The easiest way NOT to help them but still get karma points for being supportive is to say something like, "Keep writing." or "I think that's a great idea. You should write it." If that's all there is to the response, it may be nice, but it's certainly not helpful. It may have no ill intent behind it, but it's quite useless unless you were just going for the ego stroke (and that's okay too; sometimes that's all we really want, right?)

Writing can be work (even when it's fun; even when it's passion). Yet I see struggling writers being told not to bother with rules or conventions (usually by successful writers) because so-and-so broke this rule and that rule and they went on to be a big success. Again, that may sound like encouragement, but is it? It's certainly a lot easier than telling someone that breaking rules may have worked in certain cases because that story or that writer had something else going for them. It's easier than delving into why so-and-so got away with it, but why you as a nobody, certainly can't. That would actually involve a lot more time, energy, and effort.

Imagine telling someone not to bother with spelling because spell-check will catch it. Or not to bother with grammar, because some editor will fix it. While that may be true for someone like a celebrity whose name alone will sell millions of copies, it's not going to help you out of the slush pile. And furthermore, you will never advance to the nuances of "voice" which are the breaking of rules for a reason (at least where grammar is concerned; spelling, not so much) or any of the other aspects of craft which may have been a part of the reason why so-and-so got away with breaking/bending/twisting/ignoring "the rules."

You have to know what the rules are before you can break/bend/twist/ignore them. It's one thing to do it for a reason. And another to do it out of ignorance. A slush reader or editor is far more likely to think you broke, bent, twisted, or ignored a rule on purpose (when you do) if you consistently demonstrated that you are aware of what the rules are in the first place.

It's entirely possible that you may be the next unicorn that can ignore everything out of the gate and still go on to sell. Unfortunately, it's far more likely that you won't be.

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Monalisa Foster’s books

Average rating: 3.98 · 2,822 ratings · 489 reviews · 39 distinct works • Similar authors

	Conquest (Ravages of Honor Book 1) 4.34 avg rating — 62 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pretending to Sleep: A Communism Survivor's Short Story 4.82 avg rating — 34 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Threading the Needle 4.22 avg rating — 32 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ascension (Ravages of Honor Book 2) 4.38 avg rating — 13 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Promethea Invicta: A Novella 4.67 avg rating — 12 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lineage (Ravages of Honor Book 3) 4.80 avg rating — 10 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Featherlight: A Ravages of Honor Novella 4.27 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dominion: A Ravages of Honor Novella 4.33 avg rating — 6 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Enemy Beloved 4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Catching the Dark: An Alt History Short Story 4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Monalisa Foster's Blog

Ravages of Honor: Ascension available for pre-order

https://monalisafoster.com/2021/11/16...

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Published on November 16, 2021 15:26

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Conquest (Ravages of Honor Book 1)

by Monalisa Foster (Goodreads Author)

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Apr 05, 2021 09:36AM

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Monalisa’s Quotes

“Altogether, humankind had spread over less than one-eighth of the galaxy. Expansion was somewhat self-limiting. The U.S. had not been able to hold a colony at two hundred light-years distance. At fifteen hundred light-years, most nations could consider their colonies temporary holdings. Any people it took you two months to reach were not going to pay your taxes or obey your laws. That was human nature. - Wolf Star, Tour of the Merrimack #2”
― R.M. Meluch

tags: empire, merrimack, space, taxes

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