Friday, August 28, 2009

Blog Chain - Writerly Advice








Time again for the Blog Chain! This round was started by the fabulous Cole, and this is the topic she chose:

This blog chain is a game! Your subject is writerly advice. Pretend you are addressing a crowd of aspiring authors eager to soak in your words of knowledge. The problem is, you've only been given a time slot of five seconds. In one sentence (no more than 20 words), please summarize the most important words of wisdom you can impart.

If you do not belong to the blog chain please feel free to play along. Just post a link to your own blog in Cole's comments section (Click Here to do this) and she'll make sure your sentence is listed in the final blog.

This one was hard for me, mostly because I am near the end of the chain and those who have posted before me have shared AWESOME advice. Bonny posted her pearls of wisdom before me, so be sure to check her post out.

As for my advice...well, since I am one of the few writers on the chain who also does non-fiction, I'll say something a little more geared toward that genre, though this also works for fiction, especially when talking about queries and submissions. This is something I posted on recently, but I think it's good advice that bears repeating....

Write with authority; remove all the "I thinks," "I believes," and "I hopes," from your writing and
WRITE WITH CONFIDENCE.


Ah ha! Twenty words exactly :D Though I will just cheat a bit and add, this works not just in your literal writing, but in your writing attitude as well. Be confident when you write along with being confident with your actual words, and you can't go wrong.

Next up is Shaun, so head over and see what wonderful words of advice he has for us!!

16 comments:

Amanda Bonilla said...

That is great advice Michelle! If you write with confidence it shows through as strong writing!

B.J. Anderson said...

Awesome advice!! And one that I have a problem with sometimes.

Rebecca Knight said...

Ooh, I love this! This works for dialogue, too :). Kill the passive voice!

Deb said...

Great advice! I have to check myself all the time on this one.

Elana Johnson said...

Great advice!! Write like that and then vent all your insecurities behind closed email chat accounts. ;-)

Michelle McLean said...

Exactly Mandy and Rebecca :D And yep, I struggle with this too - which is why I like to keep repeating it to myself :D

And yep Elana LOL private venting is always helpful :D

Cole Gibsen said...

This is close to what I always struggle with: "He started to" "He began to". No! He just did!

Kate Karyus Quinn said...

Like Cole I am also big on the "he started to" and "began to" - and I also use the "I think" qualifier way too much. This is one I definitely need to remember!

Christine Fonseca said...

Terrific advice - and words that are so hard to live by at times :D

Jan Markley said...

Hi Michelle:

I gave you a Kreativ Blogger Award.

Check out my blog for more info:

http://janmarkley.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Great advice! Annette Curtis Klause said something when we emailed a few years back...kill the "it" in your writing as much as you can. "It" can almost always be specified.

Anonymous said...

Confidence...plays right along side my advice. Great stuff!

Annie Louden said...

Great advice!

Sandra Ulbrich Almazan said...

Good reminder!

Robin M said...

Don't mind me and all my comments. I'm catching up from being off on vacation and ignoring the internet. Great advice and a reminder not to do this. Something I find myself doing all the time. Will have to check out what the rest of the chain has said.

Kathryn Hupp-Harris said...

This! Advice! Is! Great!

:-)