Hello all,

As many of you know, I’m involved with an awesome group of writers in a challenge called WriYe. WriYe has a daily blog channel called One A Day WriYe where one member will post a vlog about writing each day. Link here.

This week’s topic is advice/questions. I’ve been watching the first few of these videos to post and I was interested in the questions being posed. As a writer myself I instantly thought of how I would answer each of the questions and thought that I may as well do so here. So here goes, the WriYe writer’s questions so far:

Question One was posed by Elizabeth who asked, “What advice do you have for new writers?”

My advice for new writers is just to do it. Sit down and write. Don’t think of anyone else, don’t try to compare your skills to anyone else, just write. Write what YOU want to write! Don’t write for your friends, or your family, or because a certain genre is popular, write what you feel passionate about writing! Write because you have a story inside you that won’t leave you alone and the only way to get it out of your head is to write it down. Don’t care if it sucks, get it on paper! (or on the computer)

Question Two was also posed by Elizabeth, who asked, “What editing advice do you have?”

My best editing advice is to read your work our loud. I find that with reading your work out loud you read what’s actually on the paper and not what you think it says. When you read out loud its easier to find those little grammar problems because you’ll have trouble getting your mouth around the sentence. You may not know exactly what’s wrong with it, but at least you know that it needs to be changed! Reading out loud has been my very best editing tool!

Question Three was posed by Keri who asked, “Where is your best place to get ideas?”

I have two places that I get my best ideas from and they depend on if I’m looking for a new project or trying to figure out where to go with my current project. All my best ideas for new projects have come from dreams. I remember probably eighty percent of my dreams and I have a journal where I write them all down. Sometimes I wake up with a new idea and can’t wait to get to my journal to write it down before I forget it!

When working on a current project I find my best ideas come from my journal itself. I like to try to write at least a page in my journal a day, even if its just gibberish or pretty much just myself talking to… myself. When I’m stuck in my plot I find it helpful to sit down and whine to my journal. I point out my problems, what loose ends I have to tie up and eventually end up writing down a bunch of ‘what if’s’. Usually within these random, and usually crazy scenarios, I find the gem I’m looking for!

Question Four was posed by Lizzy and its a two part question. She asked, “Do you have any reoccurring dreams or nightmares and Have you ever turned one of these into a writing project?”

I haven’t had any reoccurring dreams or nite-mares since I was a kid (and it is certainly not one worthy of its own story) but I do record my dreams. The current project I’m editing right now is called “Lightning” and was actually originally a dream. It was a dream I had probably ten years ago now that I wrote in my journal and when my first NaNoWriMo came up I dug it out and started turning it into a novel! Dreams are a great source of inspiration!

And now I have a question, though its not likely to be answered on the WriYe channel. But for any of you writers out there following my blog, I pose to you. “When do you consider yourself an author and not just a writer?”

I’d love to hear your comments or links to the answer to that question, or perhaps an answer to the previous four!