Are You Really a Writer?

Are You Right for Writing?

© by Holly Lisle

All Rights Reserved

You’re pretty sure you can string together sentences in a coherent manner. You even have fun doing it. And God knows you’d love to see your name on the cover of a book — maybe a best-seller, even.

But do you have what it takes to be a writer, year in and year out? Could you write your way into a decent supplemental income? Could you write your way out of your day job?

I can’t promise you a definite answer, but I might be able to give you a pretty good idea. Take my Are You Right for Writing quiz and find out where you rank on the writing personality index.

Read the original article here and take the quiz.

Writing, right? Part 1

I have started this series as I seek to explore where my writing is taking me. Why is my writing causing so much itching, and how am I going to scratch? So It has came to pass that I am a writer. Yes, that rare breed of people who are always banging at their keyboards and churning lots of text, whether relevant or not. Writers write because they have to. Writers tell society stories that they want, or do not want, hear. Writers are destined to write, until they breathe their last.

Writing is usually an itch. Until you scratch, there is no stopping the discomfort. It shall disturb your soul, your sub-conscious shall have swirling bits and wisps of fleeting thoughts. You will lay awake in the wee hours wondering why you are awake. It shall then dawn on you, at dawn, that the disturbance to your sleep was due to some idea that was forming. If you do not write, it shall disappear.

I always keep a pen and notepad on my bedside. Actually I have notepads all over my house, and the law, cast in stone, is that they are never touched. I usually jump out of bed and scribble away as ideas flood. It is a bit zany, but hey, you have to scratch when the itch starts. Am ordering one of those flexible USB LED light that lights up my keyboard like daylight. This will enable me to jump out of bed, hit the power button on the laptop to get it out of hibernate, and type away with the LED illuminating my keystrokes.

Why I am not writing, right?

So I have been off air for a couple of days, even managed to slacken my pace. I have not been faithful to my promise of 5pages a day. Having let that off my chest, let me now write about writing.

My friend challenged me on why we are not writing full time. I have agonized with this question for long. The more I think about writing, the more I feel the itch to drop everything and write. The more I write the more I feel good. Am enveloped by a surreal sense of calm, my mind engages in high-level creativity and I just see the words building on my word processor, effortlessly. The whole process is extremely satisfying and fulfilling.

It is the fulfilling part that I really want to focus on. Many a times we are distracted form out true calling by inane things. There is no greater joy than to have found your true calling, that main thing that brought you here. There is no greater sadness than to be distracted from this calling, and to be very busy doing other things that are unimportant …….. I think am rumbling. Let me recollect my thoughts.

…. after the weekend

Saturday mid-morning. I sat at my balcony, kicked off my shoes as I powered up my hp nc6120 laptop (been admiring those sleek, razor-thin Macs, but that’s a story for another day). 5 hours later, I had done an impressive 3000 words, on my other fiction book, titled The Well. I was ecstatic! I was jumping up and down around the house showing everyone who cared my impressive word count of 6,000 plus. Did I mention the new Word 2007 counts as you type (see earlier post). I was impressed. Just goes to show that with the right discipline and concentration, one can achieve alot. Writing wise that is.

Which begs the question, why am I not writing full time? To that am still looking for an answer.

Of Facebook and Writing

I must admit am a late adopter to social networking, but am now totally hooked. Been Facebooking like crazy. I never knew the power of social networks and how easy it is to find people. I have connected with old friends, have made new ones, joined networks of interest …… The possibilities are endless.

This could not have come at a better time, as I need all the networks possible to help me promote my upcoming book. It is in very good shape and am optimistic that it shall be a hit.

I have been listing all the places I shall donate my book including churches, schools, youth groups etc since it has a positive message for everybody. I am also convinced that it is blessed to give

Am off to Facebook!

The Blogger Lives On

So I have been face down, drinking from the well. The well that bubbles with wisdom and sagely sayings, thought-provoking discourse and sharp commentary. In fact I have discovered, while face down at the well, that I was very thirsty, parched. Cracked lips and dry mouth, not mention a raspy throat. I share below some of the wisdom I imbibed while at the well.

(This is extracted from Kahlil Gibran’s seminal work, The Prophet, published by Pan Books, 1991)

The Prophet said when asked about Giving

You give but little when you give of your possessions
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space

And The Prophet said about Work

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music

And The prophet said about Reason and Passion

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas

And The Prophet said of Self-Knowledge

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and nights
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams

And it is well you should

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes

Keep drinking from the well! Slake your thirst, won’t you?

New Frontiers

We seek to conquer and dominate
With swords gallantly held high
Shields and body armour to our rescue
As we fight this vicious battle to secure
The new frontiers

The fuzzy logic is whirring
Churning and spewing out new
Epithets and epics, slowly but surely
Cranking and clucking laboriously
As we move forward

The cog turns and the other cog wheel’s
Tooth get caught in the web of the first and
Turns the entire second cog wheel, round
And round as the entire mechanism
Winds slowly and tenaciously

We are fighting to win
The new frontiers left
Since we are fearless as well as
Peerless and we came here to conquer
Not to be ashamedly vanquished

————————————–

As I wrote the poem above I kept asking myself what I was trying to say …. actually I could not answer myself and it doesn’t matter. Let the mystery remain, I will decipher it one day. What matters is that I wrote it, because if it can be written, I will write. Period.

New to Microsoft Word 2007

I have been drive testing the above, and one cool feature is the word count thingy at the bottom left on the status bar. Nothing could be more exciting as you write a book! I can literally see my word count grow in tandem with the soreness of the finger tips. This “live ticker” of word count into numbers keeps me motivated and hungry for more!

Am at the phase of wrapping up the my book and it has come out well. I have a list of publishers whose doors I shall be knocking soon, so all you publishers out there, am coming !

I also discovered Notepad ++ ver 4.8.5, a great application that I write my blogs (like this post) offline and do other plain text editing. It is also great for XML and HTML editing, other things am learning! Did I mention 7Zip? Check out these utilities, and donate.

Am also waiting for my new Ubuntu CDs to be shipped, since downloading the ISO image on this side of the digital divide is a real pain in the back side. Are the ISPs and the fibre optic cablers reading this? I terribly need broadband (real, not imagined) on my balcony, barefoot (bila shoes). Talk to me people!

Still, hey life is truly phenomenal! Am enjoying it!