Creative Writing with a Pulse

Okay, so you have dabbled in poetry and written the occasional short story. School has frayed every last research nerve and you are ready to become the world's most innovate, break out writer. Publishing houses will worship you, Hollywood will burn up your phone lines, and you will live a life of luxury because one night you dreamed the perfect story and all your wishes came true.

Unfortunately, we can't all be Stephanie Meyers, who had a dream, wrote a story, and hit the market in six months by destroying the backbone of vampire literature. The rest of us have to stare at a computer screen until we bleed out writer's block with our fingers crossed.

Writing a successful novel demands not only talent and discipline but also a sense of craftsmanship. No textbook can supply passion, but mechanics is another issue. The subtitles characterization, viewpoint, setting, dialogue, and plot cannot be isolated because the craft demands so much overlapping and weaving. Write with a fire under your ass, a yearning in your heart, and discipline in your mind.

If your writing does not make you cry, piss you off, or make you shudder with passion, don't expect readers too either. A simple rule of thumb: if you can't see it clearly, neither will your readers. Write the novel you always wanted to read. And do it will fire.

The compulsive writer salves at his chapters in the early morning or late night, perseveres in spite of all discouragements, and knows that he will carry on writing so long as he can hold a pen. If you are anything like me, that is the pulse of your storytelling. Keep asking yourself "What am I trying to say?"

Everything thing that has ever happened to you - especially growing up - will affect your writing today, and perhaps certain sufferings will prove to be of greatest value. The person you are and the books you write are one and the same thing.

Mind you, this is not to say write your life story and it will make you a best-seller. Merely take the emotions from those memories and reinvent them. The moment you drowned in those hazel eyes, when you fell into an isolated frenzy of self doubt, that time you were blinded by a rage that ripped your insides but you smiled outwardly. We have all been there.

Hell, even a man trying to write from a female POV. It is possible. The thing is you can't be Fred trying to be Gina. You have to drop your own life and step into her shoes, see as Gina sees, recall her memories, feel as she feels. Try not to write as a God who knows all because you risk becoming predictable. If the reader knows the cliffhanger and is over it before you even manage the foreshadowing something is wrong.

Find the moment and make it as real as the life you live. That is the story worth reading.