Being a Better Writer: Acknowledging Our Accomplishments · 11:30pm Dec 13th, 2017
Welcome and Merry Christmas, readers, to this quite delayed Being a Better Writer post! First of all, it must be said, I'm sorry for the delays. I try to avoid letting these happen, but with the Christmas rush being what it has been ... I'm fighting to get a lot of things done.
That said, this will also be the last BaBW piece until the new year. That's right, I'll be taking the next two weeks off for Christmas. A small Christmas vacation for myself (and a chance to finalize those last few chapters of Jungle when I'm not at my part-time).
Apology accepted? Good! Now, let's talk about today's topic. I'll be up front with this one: It's not from the Topic List. Nor was it something I'd thought of until I realized it was likely going to be the last post of the year, and maybe giving things a bit of a theme wouldn't be a bad idea.
So rather than talking about how to invoke emotion with your characters, or how to pace a fight scene, or set up a armory of Chekov's Guns, I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about acknowledging your own accomplishments.
Good time of the year for it, no? Like I said, year's end ...
There was a webcomic special I read once (I actually tried to find it for this post, but didn't have much luck), about accomplishment. It showed the author climbing a mountain, fully laden in cartoonish hiking gear and working their way further and further up to the peak. Eventually, after much struggle, they reached the peak, planted their flag, and cheered.
I don't even have to click the link to know that I'll probably fully approve of a blog that probably says everything I've been trying to convince struggling authors of for years.
*checks link*
Yep, fully approve. About dang time someone else seems to 'get it'.
...Huh, that was a strange read. Speaking for myself, I love the challenge of pushing for improvement so when I get to your figurative peak it is more frustrating than anything else because it means I have to go find a new peak to climb. This whole post is a very alien way of thinking to me because you are focused on destinations while I am focused on the journey with the understanding that there is no real endpoint because it is impossible for anything to be truly perfect so there is always room for improvement.