Shouts From Down Under

The mountain climbing aspect of successful writing

You wouldn't cheerfully head off on an expedition, to conquer the peaks of the Himalayas, without the right guidance, equipment, and knowledge would you?

Have you heard any screaming lately? Is someone you know falling to their literary end, from having the wrong equipment, the wrong preparation, the wrong attitude, incorrect advice, or lack in some other area?

What are the pitfalls? What will go wrong? How do we achieve the seemingly impossible? Who do we approach for help with all this complexity and vexation?

Let's all have a minute or two of fingernail biting, brow furrowing, negative thoughts and even some rapid breathing and sweating.

There. Now, let's leave all that behind.

Because everyone can prepare for successful writing, just as someone would prepare to climb yonder peaks.

Why do it? Why bust our butts to be best at biographies?

Why climb mountains?

Because they are there?

The other day I sat in the library here and had a quiet moment. I looked at all the books. ALL the books as a whole.
And I realised that here is a room full of trophies. These books are winners' trophies - every single one.
We may not like all genres. We might even detest some, and dislike the writers. Many others might be our favourites.

But it has to be said. They all made it. From those days in mankind's (people-kind's) history, when there were few if any books, scrolls, tablets, cave art - whatever.
We now look at today's unimaginable number of written works, not only in one column-studded library for scholars, in some ancient city, where only the privileged or perhaps those considered eccentric or insane took the time to study these valuable tomes, but now there are many buildings, even in one city, chocka block full of books and reading material of all types.

All these people wrote something. They made it to the top of that mountain of victory. They overcame their own self doubt, and all the myriad other negatives. Even if their book seems to be crap to me or you, they did it.

I'm sure there are just as many works not published that are just as good if not better than those crammed on metal shelves and behind glass in reference only sections, in out-the-back-stacks, in cardboard cartons in people's sheds, and of course...on people's computers. On servers, in clouds, on flash drives, in kids notepads, on iphones, on the back of shopping receipts folded over in people's wallets or purses.

There are umpteenth places to learn the "ropes" of mountain climbing so to speak. Plenty of guides and trainers ready to assist with the whole enterprise.
I'm sure there are plenty of critics to go around too. But even so, many of these will be of help too.

We wouldn't go straight to the highest mountain to climb it, would we? Well, maybe we would if there was the confidence.

But in reality, perhaps we'd try a smaller one first, see if we did stuff wrong, fix the lack, and try again.

Success. How is that measured? In $$? Is it in the amount of views on Writing Dot Com? Is it in how many followers on Twitter, or how many people refer to our blog or a Pinterest board? Is it how artsy fartsy our writing sounds to a reader?
How big the words we use? How correct the grammar and so on?

What if our aim was only to write for ourselves? And if we did that; completed that project and there it sat. A nice handwritten story in an A4 binder. Wouldn't that be success to us?

I suppose whatever our aim is, whatever our goal in writing, success will be up to us and the amount of passion we can drum up, the resilience we show to bounce back from critique, our capacity to change and improve. If we reach what we've aimed for, then surely that is success.

We don't want to fall to our deaths from lack of the right equipment or by being self deluded and not accepting advice.

Time is precious and our moments are flicking by with every breath, but I feel it's important to spend relaxed hours learning or improving ourselves or our craft.

Perhaps I'm guilty of waffling on in blogs, but the essence is there. I want to encourage anyone who wants to write or is writing, to check out their equipment, do some research, ask the questions, and be ready for change without losing their identity.

When someone says they love your work, your stories, your passion etc, it's like finally reaching the peak of that goal or mountain you've aimed for; it may not be that high, but to you it's an achievement and a watershed moment.

We may not aim to be published, and we can enjoy the view of each successful moment, whatever the pinnacle is for us.

Oh yeah....the view.



Sparky