Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Rob Parnell Seven keys to unlock your dreams, seven words you need to hold dear on your journey. They are: 1. Passion You cannot devote your life to anything without a passion for it. No amount of coulda, shoulda, woulda will help. If you don't know what your passion is, look for it, identify it. You'll know what it is when you feel warm inside and a smile touches your lips. Follow your passion. 2. Energy You cannot fuel your passion without the enthusiasm to pursue your chosen path. Enthusiasm needs your body fit and your mind alert. Then you can focus on what is important to you. If you're not feeling healthy, find time to relax and nurture your self, your being. When you're relaxed, your energy will multiply and your enthusiasm go further - and your passion can become manifest. 3. Resolve All the passion and energy in the world will amount to naught without a goal and the determination to reach it. When you venture on a course you know to be fulfilling, you must see ...

Rob Parnell As writers, we all know that careful editing makes the crucial difference between rejection and acceptance. Only a complete novice thinks that editing is not as important, if not more important, than the actual writing. For the purposes of this article, I'm assuming you know all the usual advice about editing for publication. If not, go here: http://easywaytowrite.com/selfediting.html Editing for publication requires a clearer focus on some very specific issues. The object of the editing and rewriting process is to get your book into a shape that is instantly recognizable as a serious contender in the marketplace by the agents and publishers you will send it to. These people – people who read manuscripts all the time – recognize when you’ve done this work correctly. The signs are in fact all too clear. Right up front. For instance, if your first line is meandering and vaguely pointless (a common enough scenario for 90% of all manuscripts), they know that the rest of the...

Do you ever have those days when you're feeling muzzy and unmotivated? You know how it is. Sometimes you feel you should write, but you don't feel like it. And even if you did, you're plagued by the thought you can't think of anything to write about. Or maybe you know you have an important scene or an article to write and you can't find the necessary impetus to get you started. Worse, you just can't be bothered to write at all - it's too hard to even contemplate. What do you do when this happens to you? If you write for a living, this can be especially troubling. After all, if you're not writing, you're not working. So you feel bad because you know that not writing equals no money coming in, now or in the future... What's the solution? First of all you need to get your head around 'The Big Secret.' And the big secret is that career writers don't need a reason to write. They don't need inspiration or a good idea. They don't eve...

Rob Parnell It's one of those bizarre phenomena - the way writers see-saw between a love/hate relationship with their own writing. You're in the throes of a story or an article - you don't want to stop because you're feeling inspired. Each word and phrase seems to resonate with profound meaning. The drama and/or the thought process seems to be unfolding well - and you're on a high. Finally, it seems as though the hotline between your thoughts and the page are in sync - you're writing well and all is right with the world. This feeling can last a few hours, even a few days... ... until you look back at what you've done. Then the angst sets in. The writing you thought was superb suddenly seems clunky and inadequate. The phrases you particularly liked now seem awkward and ill-formed. Worse, your intellect seems exposed: you feel as though your writing shows you to be the hack you never wanted to be: the metaphors lack depth and the imagery is weak. The writing d...

Rob Parnell It's every writer's dream. To write something that sells millions and pretty much guarantees you a place in history. Now that's sweet - the idea of it anyway. Of course, you have to remember it's every publisher's dream too. I read a publisher's blog recently that said that even in the US, it was rare for any author to sell more than a few hundred of their own books - and only then if they were lucky. I know that mainstream publishers with worldwide distribution often have trouble selling the first print run of what they call their 'B List' authors - a title which pretty much covers the majority of us! That's the reality. For every bestselling author that sells millions of copies of their book, there are perhaps a thousand, more likely ten thousand other authors who get by selling barely enough of their books to justify their publishing deals. Many career writers who receive (often small) advances on their work usually don't start mak...

Rob Parnell We've been busy these last couple of weeks going through staff applications and we've just started conducting interviews. It's fascinating to view so many different people and gain some appreciation and insight for their very different lives, hopes and dreams. As a writer, coming into contact with new people obviously fires my imagination and makes me think of characters I may not have considered - or imagined - before. Be that as it may... (one of those strange cliches that doesn't appear to say what you think it means.) It's also interesting to me because the whole experience of expanding my horizons has made me re-evaluate where I want to take my writing business in the future. The other night I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about what I would do if I had a huge staff of helpers, consultants and writers. What would be possible? Just what could I achieve, I thought, if I had a large corporation of people to run, occupy and motivate? Instead of jus...

Rob Parnell Do you ever have those days when you don't know what to write about? And worse, do those days turn into weeks and months, even years? You're not alone. I know this for a fact because people email me and send me letters about it all the time. According to most surveys, 80% of people feel they have a writer inside, someone who could - and thinks they should - write a book at some point in their lives. That's a huge statistic. So huge that it's the kind of percentage that would have marketers foaming at the mouth! But experience shows that only around 5% actually get around to any kind of serious writing in their lifetimes - and only around 1% of that 5% end up getting paid to do it. That's why, in marketing terms, writing remains a niche - one of those nebulous terms that means 'so specialized' as to be largely irrelevant to modern demographics. Clearly that doesn't quash the urge to write for most of us. But this issue of "I want to write...