Painting With Light

Flowers in the Basket

I’ve said it before. Good writing is part science and part gift. The gift part is something only a lucky few are born with.

There are only so many Stephen King’s, J.K. Rowling’s, Brad Meltzer’s or James Patterson’s, after all.

The science part is something everyone can do. It’s called reading.

This bears repeating. Good writers have to read. Have to. Because reading the works of other people is studying the craft.

Without that study, a writer will never possess more than a small piece of the puzzle.

So, if you want to be an author (a good one anyway), you have to read everything you can. No way around it.

Some people think it’s easy. After all, everyone writes.

We’ve all been doing it since our earliest school days. Right after learning the symbols of the alphabet and the sounds those curious scribbles stood for, we began to create words.

Most of us at least wrote stories and essays in school.

A few people write or comment on a blog (the Journal of today), and most exchange emails with friends and neighbors, even if they don’t write letters anymore.

At the very least, a lot of us have scribbled 140 characters or less into a thought of some sort on The Twitter.

Real authors, however, create wings for their thoughts. Writers … good ones anyway … create worlds, shape ideas and make us think.

Words are never more alive than this.

I love working with words.

I try to sculpt ordinary words until they shine, putting something out into the universe that never existed in quite that way before. I’m not quite vain enough to think I have a natural ability for the craft.

I know success only comes with practice, so I work hard at it … every single day.

Even while I was vacationing last week with some dear friends, I was reading … and imagining how I could describe the things around me. The clouds. The sea. New people and places.

I was also thinking about that podcast I promised to make, answering your questions about writing. Hang in there. It’s coming.

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My books have garnered some terrific reviews. You can see the stories I have available by using the Amazon link below.

You’re also invited to visit my web site, BROKEN GLASS, or like my Book of Face page. You can also follow my shorter ramblings on The Twitter.

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Comments posted below will be read, greatly appreciated and perhaps even answered.

Tags: award-winning writing, indie writers, storytelling

This entry was posted on June 30, 2015 at 9:56 am and is filed under Award-Winning Fiction, Storytelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.