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    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy
    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy
    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy
    Ebook91 pages1 hour

    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy

    By Dara Girard

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Burnout

    Stress

    Anxiety

    That's just part of the writing life.

    If you don't believe this, you're not alone.

    This handy little guide is meant to help you re-think what writers have been told is 'common sense'.  New and experienced writers, with a sense of humor who are serious about their craft and want to hone their BS meter, will discover how to navigate and survive in this constantly changing industry.

    Using insight from famous artists and long-term professional writers, you'll learn why:

    • writers give up their power to strangers
    • become critics instead of creators
    • follow rules instead of breaking them

    and more...

    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy encourages writers to question some of the accepted beliefs in the publishing industry and rediscover their joy of creation and build a career with an artists' mindset.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIlori Press Books
    Release dateJun 7, 2022
    ISBN9781393446989
    Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy
    Author

    Dara Girard

    Dara Girard fell in love with storytelling at an early age. Her romance writing career happened by chance when she discovered the power of a happy ending. She is an award-winning author whose novels are known for their sense of humor, interesting plot twists, and witty dialogue. Dara loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her at [email protected] or P.O Box 10345, Silver Spring, MD 20914.

    Read more from Dara Girard

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      Book preview

      Artists are Weird but Writers are Crazy - Dara Girard

      Introduction

      In 2011, I began a series of blogs under the heading Artists are Weird BUT Writers are Crazy after seeing some strange behavior by writers in the publishing industry. But as I saw indie publishing taking hold, I soon abandoned that series, thinking that with new freedom, writers would realize how powerful they are.

      Fast forward ten years. I discovered I was wrong. Writers are making even stranger choices than before. (My personal favorite—advice given in a reputable publication—is find all your one-star reviews and change your work accordingly. I didn’t know whether to laugh or weep.)

      So I looked at this series again with a fresh eye and thought about the conversation that started it all.

      August 2010

      One day, I was telling my mother (a trained artist) about a writer who said they don’t read because they don’t want to be influenced by other writers. They want to be original.

      Artist: Is that common?

      Writer: Unfortunately, I’ve met several writers who think that way.

      Artist: That makes no sense. That’s like an artist who never looks at the work of other artists or a musician who doesn’t listen to music.

      Writer: True, but writers are different.

      Artist: No, writers are crazy…

      I then read The Wall Street Journal blog post Cherish the Book Publishers—You’ll Miss Them When They’re Gone, which I thought was hilarious until I realized that other writers took it seriously (not serious as in I’m insulted, but as in He’s right), that’s when I knew what I’d only suspected: Writers are crazy!

      But I still wasn’t ready to put my thoughts out there until I read a blog post by prolific author Dean Wesley Smith where he said, Writers, be artists…

      That’s when I knew I needed to speak up. He’s spot on. Writers can learn a lot from artists.

      Some Background

      I grew up in a house with an artist. My mother painted a mural on the wall in my bedroom, I had handmade dolls, and I didn’t just get notes in my lunch boxes, I got mini masterpieces with cartoons and pictures. I didn’t need to buy subject dividers for my school binder; my mother created them for me (my friends were envious and wanted them too).

      My mother, a trained medical illustrator, also did abstract painting, created posters, and greeting cards. She made set designs, puppets, dolls, and whatever else her creative mind thought of. Sometimes she sold her work. Sometimes she gave them away, so creative expression was nothing new to me.

      From my earliest recollection, I wanted to be a writer (while balancing three other careers, which sounded sensible to a seven-year-old). I created a newsletter at age seven and started sending out my novels to New York editors at twelve (with every intention of getting published by fourteen).

      My plan failed, spectacularly.

      Looking back, it’s no surprise. I loved to read, but I wasn’t a great reader (one elementary teacher kept telling me to find easier books to read since I didn’t have a natural aptitude—I looked up the word and never trusted her again since teaching me anything was not a high priority for her).

      Anyway, I had ambition but lacked the skill. I didn’t have a natural fluency with language. Few would have thought I’d go on to a life as a writer; I didn’t have natural talent. I missed most of fourth grade recess because I was such a poor speller. In order to motivate us to be better, we had to rewrite every word we got wrong twenty times (well, when you get twenty words wrong, you can image how long that’ll take, and no matter how much I tried, certain words kept tripping me up—oh well).

      I don’t have talent, I have tenacity.

      Henry Rollins

      If nothing else, I hope I can be an example that tenacity beats talent. When you don’t know or lack something, with effort, you can learn and improve. That’s life’s great equalizer that you’re not taught in school but works in the real world.

      So for years I tried my best not to get buried under the mountain of rejections coming at me. This was the day of snail mail, and I wasn’t writing short stories. I was writing one hundred fifty to two hundred–page manuscripts, which kept being boomeranged back to me.

      Sometimes the mailbox would be so stuffed with large yellow manila envelopes that the poor mail carrier had to leave the box open or leave them on the front step. Most times I’d race home from school and make sure to get to the mailbox before anyone else did so that I could hide the rejections from my parents. It was hard enough being heartbroken. I knew they’d hurt even more, and I didn’t want that—plus they’d worry. For them, the American Dream was not a career as writer. If you’re good with words, you become a lawyer—case closed.

      But I hung in there for the thirteen years of needed apprenticeship before I sold my first novel. However, when I finally entered the field as a published author, I was amazed by the fear I encountered. I hadn’t experienced it because I’d been on the journey primarily on my own. I hadn’t joined critique groups or attended writing workshops and conferences.

      I just wrote, submitted, wrote some more, and submitted some more. And when I say wrote, I don’t mean just novels or short stories but also poems, plays, essays, articles, ad copy, cards, gags, and so on. I did this for years in spite of the puzzled looks of others.

      When you’re a child, people allow you to dream (isn’t that cute?), but by the time I reached my late teens and early twenties, people kept wondering when I’d get over my little hobby and grow up and find a real job. (Some still wonder, but that’s another story.)

      Again, unlike other writers, it took me years until I reached my goal of getting a novel published. (I had minor successes with articles and essays being published, but I wanted to be a novelist.) I followed my mother’s example. At an early age, she fell in love with art and experimented with different media and

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