What to Know About Writers

Writers are a specific group of people that some do not understand. So, here's how to better understand better. (This is personalized opinion, not the truth.)

1. Experience

Every experience we have is worth it. Writers like singers draw from their own experiences and create something new, except writers can disguise it much better than any singer. We add fantasy or exaggeration so much that it is completely disguised.

2. People

When we go on walks or go shopping or do any kind of socialization, we see people that can become characters. That woman yelling at the salesperson: she is a divorced widow who can't get a break or she's mean and spoiled due to childhood trauma. (Yes, it is a little bit psychological.) The man on the bus reading the paper is actually an FBI agent following someone.

3. Imagination

Our imaginations run wild. The dark can be a scary place. That is no chair, but a vampire waiting for me to fall asleep! Ahh! But our imaginations can be very useful. "Make-up a story!" and bam! From the tops of our heads, we can make up very funny and fantastical stories.

4. Problem-solving

Easy. You might have a job that requires quick thinking and this is where writing comes in handy; if we can think of a problem for our character to have we can also come up with solutions easily enough. This also ties in the creativity thing.

5. Sentences

Sometimes we will stop what we are doing and write down the most genius beautifully crafted sentence that had just popped into our head and it will then transform into a whole book in our heads.

6. Drop it and write it!

The struggle is real. We must drop what we are doing and an inspiring idea will come to our head and we just need to write it down!! So we stop what we are doing, we drop everything we are doing just to write down this idea that has formed in our beautiful minds.

7. Twisted

An author might seem like a little twisted because of the ideas that they come up with for new novels such as Stephen King—yes, he is the king of horror and thrillers, but his last name tells us that. However, if you read his novel titled On Writing, the reader gets a glimpse of his life and quite frankly it is fairly ordinary and his ideas are extraordinary. He is no twisted person because of his ideas (okay, maybe he is a little bit). Let's face it we are all very different.

8. Characters

We might get very attached to the characters we have created and have a hard time killing them, so we have to make their death epic even if it was the greatest villain who had ever lived or the greatest hero. Sometimes these characters become very real to us because we spent time creating their mannerisms and how they talk. They can sometimes become a part of us.

9. Editing

We all hate it and we all need to do it. It's literally making faces while staring at the same paragraph or word for hours and deciding whether or not that was necessary to do.

10. Middle?

We often have a killer ending, great beginning, but we fail how to get to that endpoint from the start without destroying the story completely. Middle of the book or story is usually the toughest.

11. Research

Researching can get a little weird; we might be looking up how long does a human body burn, or look up graphic pictures of what a human burnt body looks like. It's gross, but we've got to know how to describe and how to show this grossness. We might need to look up certain things about cities and how the culture is (so there is normal research there, too.)

12. Reality

As someone on social media once pointed out: you are willing to pay 5 dollars for coffee and tipping the barista and then when you buy a book you complain about the price being too high. Writers do not get paid gloriously unless you are Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. The publishers take some of that money, the distributors take some more, and the stores take even more and the author gets paid twenty cents in the end. Tough love.

13. The Wall

We see the destination, we see the end, we see what happens, we understand the character's motive, but then comes the wall, which just tells you NO! and STOP! Then, you sit at the computer and end up on Pinterest to find inspiration, which then leads to no writing at all.

14. Old

No. What is this? We are reading what we wrote and we are disgusted by the sentences we had written and we have to run to the bathroom to get rid of the word vomit we have created on that page. Then we erase it and it is okay. Old writing is weird to look at.

15. Curiosity

When people ask what your book is about and you can just stand there and blink because you are not sure yourself.

16. Achievement

Ah! Those 30,000 words are done, yay! But wait... where's the plot and characters and what's this? Oh no, I have to delete this document.

17. Greatness

You have re-read and edited to your heart's desire and you realize, "hey I might make twenty cents off of this" and you believe it is good and you hit the submit button.