There are two approaches to writing. It can be a job, a career – or it can be a hobby, like a weekend painter. There's nothing
wrong with either approach, but ...

  If you want to have a writing career, if
you want to be a professional writer, you have to approach it as a … well, as a
professional.

  The Greeks believed creative people – writers, musicians, sculptors and painters – were inspired by goddesses, the Muses. It's a beautiful conception, but I think maybe we've misinterpreted the meaning. Maybe what the Greeks meant was that the Muses touch people at some point in their lives, fill them with the desire to create music, or paint, or
write.

  Beyond that, though, if you're going to create anything on a steady basis – be a professional, in other words – you have to work at it.

  I've actually heard beginning writers say, “I didn't do any writing today. My muse didn't show up.”

Let me tell you … Picasso didn't sit around waiting on a muse. Neither did Rembrandt or Van Gogh, or Wagner or Ernest Hemingway. I have indeed wangled my way into a couple of art shows by arguing that writing novels is a form of art, but writing – writing as a professional – is as much (maybe more) about craft as it is art.

  Early on, I used to consciously think about what I do – what I am – in terms of “wordsmithing” rather than “writing,” a little reminder that, rather than sitting around waiting to be “inspired,” I had to actively seek inspiration.

  The professional writer writes every single day. Yes, there have been days, especially early in my career, when I really don't feel inspired, when I produce what – on later inspection – is trash. But writing isn't about turning out masterpieces on a daily basis. Writing is about practice. Writing is about forming habits.

  Writing is about showing up and putting in an honest day's labor. It's what an employer expects of you – what, hopefully, we expect of ourselves – on any other “nine-to-five” job. And speaking of those other jobs – yes, it's harder to work on that novel or non-fiction opus when you're putting in a 40-hour work week elsewhere. I've “been there, done that” myself.

  But if your end-goal is to become the professional writer you dream of being, you can find the time. Before you go to work, after you get home, on your lunch break ...

  Writing is a continual process of learning. There is lots of “how-to” advice out there about writing, much of it online. Entire books have been written on everything from writing books or magazine articles in general to specific “how-tos”: how to craft nonfiction, or romance novels, or Westerns, SF or fantasy books. You can also learn a lot just by reading – not only your favorite authors but those you don't like because …
well … they're awful. Bad writing offers its own lessons.

  If you're lucky enough to be able to enroll in a writer's class or two – or join a writer's group – do it.

  But the best way to learn how to write is to just sit down and ... write. Take what you've gleaned from books and how-to articles, and put it to use. Even if you can only squeeze out five or ten minutes a day initially – do it.

How do you inspire yourself as a writer? What tips can you offer from your own experience? Please share ...

About the photo above ... It's my basset hound, Buster, engaged in his favorite activity ...

Not long ago, I saw this question on a writer's forum: “I want to be an author. What do I write about?”

Okay … First – in my humble opinion – if
you don't know what you want to write about, you're not ready to become a
writer, let alone an author.

  Writing is an intensely personal experience. If you're going to connect with a reader in any kind of meaningful way, what you
write has to come from the heart – your heart, not someone else's. I can't tell you what your book should be about any more than I could have told Picasso what to paint.

  It's easy these days to do a little research and find out what types of books are hot commodities among readers. So, all you have to do is check the bestseller lists, write your own book on the current hot topic (vampire love, zombie apocalypse, erotic romance) and – Presto! People will flock to buy your book too. Right?

  Wrong.

  Unless you're an avid reader of this kind of book yourself, unless this is the kind of book you already are dying to write, you've probably doomed yourself to failure.

  My Portals fantasy/detective series, for example, started because I had this character in my head  … He happened to be an elf, and he happened to be a police detective. And at that point, I had to figure out what kind of book I needed to write to accommodate him.


But my “what kind of book” questions weren't about what is, or isn't, selling. They were about the kind of books – and movies and TV shows, for that matter – that I enjoy reading and watching. The Portals books blend a lifelong love of folklore, mythology and fantasy with decades of reading crime novels, plus more recent fascination with the CSI shows on TV.

  In fact, my original plans were for the book series to be a bit heavier on forensics – another interest of mine. But that idea was short-circuited when Tevis (the elf detective who started this whole thing) showed that he could See how someone died just by laying hands on the victim …

But the books are an outgrowth, and a reflection, of my personal interests, my reading (and movie and TV) tastes. For better or worse, they come from my heart.

  All the books that I've read and truly enjoyed have started that way. I can't imagine, for example, JRR Tolkien doing market research before sitting down to write Lord of the Rings. (If he had, in fact, those books might never have been written.) Nor can I envision Hemingway asking around before embarking on such classics as The Sun Also Rises or
For Whom the Bell Tolls.

  It's hard – pretty much impossible – to write about something that doesn't already interest you. Trust me … Readers know the difference between a writer who's actively engaged in the book, a writer who is passionate about her characters and storyline, and one who isn't.

  Writers of fiction continue the ancient art of story-telling. It's just that we set into words the kinds of tales that our ancestors told around campfires in the evenings. And if you, the writer, aren't passionate about the story you're telling, why should I be as a reader? The question isn't “What kind of book should I write?” but …

  “What's the story that I want to tell?”