Hints and Tips
First of all, if you're hoping to make a
huge fortune from writing,
good luck.
Just remember that it's only the authors whose names you actually know who are making anything like big bucks. Below them are the thousands and thousands of struggling hopefuls who might as well be out there shining shoes, or working in a shop, for all they make from their pen or word processor (see column right).
PS: Like the apples? A tree in our garden.
Exercise to help kick-start your imagination
This comes from my book 'Creative Wr/Editing' and was borrowed by someone in another website.
Take eight elements, chosen at random. Be as adventurous as you wish, it's just for fun:
AN ERA: a time in which to set your piece - past, present or future.
A SETTING: forest, town, distant planet, beach, farm, railway
station... YOU choose.
A MOOD: happy, sad, angry, revengeful, lonely...
A PROTAGONIST: the being who is feeling your chosen mood - man
woman, child; earthling or alien; could even be an animal, or a
mechanical object such as a car. Don't play safe - experiment.
A VERB of movement: how is your protagonist moving? Dawdling,
running, gliding, sailing, stomping, galumphing, hobbling...
AN OBJECT: anything at all - a ball, a firework, a flower, an
elephant...
AN ADJECTIVE to describe the object - a red ball; a dud firework; a
fading flower... NB
adjectives, too, should be used with discretion.
NAME your protagonist.
Finally, use these elements to construct a sentence, beginning
'As....'
You might choose fairly safe things like a mood of happiness, felt
by a woman, who is strolling, in the present day, through a shopping
mall, the object being a scarlet dress. Let's call the woman Ann.
As Ann strolled through the shopping precinct, the sight of the
red dress in the shop window made her feel warm with happiness.
Not immediately dramatic, but maybe she's a shop-lifter!!
Or you could be more daring and go for a mood of revenge, felt by a
male alien being who, on some distant planet, is flying above a salt
desert, with a spire that is pulsating. Let's call this being Gnert.
As Gnert flew over the salt desert, his vengeful eyes lit
on The Spire, which he could see pulsating in the distance. (It
seemed to me that The Spire would have even more dramatic impact
with capital letters. Do you agree?)
This exercise creates a sound beginning - something happening,
someone in action, with questions raised in the reader's mind. All
in one sentence.
Choose your own basic elements. Mix and match them as you like. Then, continue writing for five minutes, just scribble whatever occurs to you. You could find yourself launched into a really great story. Try it. You may surprise yourself.
Notes
Some years ago, the Society of Authors did a survey of the earnings of all members - you have to be author of a full-length published work to join - and what they found was, roughly (don't quote me on this but it's near enough), that about one per cent earn a decent living from writing and, of those, a few are rich (J K Rowling and Dan Brown spring to mind). However, ninety-five per cent were earning less than £500 ($1000) a year, maybe having published just one book, or spent years researching and writing some erudite tome that can be found in reference libraries but no one would dream of buying. So, as you might guess, the other four per cent were somewhere in between.
Even well-published authors with dozens of books to their name are not necessarily making their bank managers, or the tax man, chortle with glee. Which means, if you're in it solely for the money, don't bother. It's tough, lonely work, time-consuming, family-alienating and lonely. Just you and that screen (or paper if you prefer to work that way).
On the other hand, when it's going well, there's no better feeling in the world -- that is, assuming you're a born writer who just loves to work with words and make up stories and invent characters and scenes and share it with others through the medium of written words, whether it pays or not.
Loads of people sigh wistfully, 'I'd love to be a writer... I really want to be a writer... How do you get to be a writer?'
Well, that's easy - if you want to be a writer, write! If you're not already at it in every spare moment, preferring it to all other pastimes, then maybe you're not a writer after all.
That's it. Generally speaking, writing chooses you, not you it. Born, not made. Blessed, or cursed, with that 'inveterate itch'. 'nuff said? Why are you reading this? Shouldn't you be writing your own stuff?