Advice | justinewinter

Oftentimes, the conscious act of writing is personal. Our minds can become heavily trafficked by every day problems and life:

* Something you did didn’t go to plan and you start fretting.
* Someone else’s stress starts affecting you.
* Marital issues become unbearable.
* Lack of money and an increase in bills have you panicking.
* Your boss dumps a huge pile of work on your desk at 3pm on a Friday, expecting it to be done by Monday, yet you have plans to take the kids away to a theme park.

Daily struggles have a way of consuming our thoughts with loud chatter, and as humans we often need an outlet, a medium to voice the craziness in order to clear the clutter. For many, the choice is to sit with a cuppa and vent, let it out to those closest to you. For others, they choose to write it down. Whether somebody else sees it is irrelevant, the aim is to empty the mind.

This is why writing is often personal; it’s a kind of therapy.
You bare all your darkest secrets, desires and fears on the page because you know it won’t judge you. There’s no reply. No criticism. It’s your sanctuary to explore your current journey.

Sometimes, you write to understand what you’re thinking. It’s a logical thought process that enables to get you from A to B in order to find the solution.

“The written word, in all its forms, holds tremendous power.”
Hrvoje Butkovic

However, I write to quieten the madness inside me, to give structure and purpose to my every day musings. It’s there I’m most objective; I see what’s going on around me as if through a filter lens.

“I write to give myself strength.
I write to be the characters that I am not.
I write to explore all the things I’m afraid of.”
Joss Whedon

I write to mould words into life, to give credence to what I observe. It isn’t easy to write coherently, to have readers sympathise with your characters, but the joy of fitting sentences together like the pieces of a jigsaw is undeniably satisfactory. Yes, it’s a long, lonely road filled with a constant battle between doubt and glee, but the gratification of a completed project makes it worthwhile. Your efforts will be rewarded eventually.

“The true alchemists do not change lead into gold;
they change the world into words.”
William H. Gass

I made a deliberate decision to write publicly:

* To open myself up to new opinions and thoughts in order to grow.
* To view the Universe through another’s eyes.
* To learn.

I will never know enough about this craft to honestly profess I need not study anymore. Writing evolves every day, making it more exciting and challenging, forcing me to work harder.

I might never reach the status of Writing Queen. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. When passion, determination and ambition collide, magic happens. Don’t let fear get in the way of your dreams; you deserve what you’re willing to work for.

“You can make anything by writing.”
C. S. Lewis

Struggling with being a writer in the age of social media? Check this article out. You’re not alone.

Finally, last call to submit your questions to me in my open Q&A session. All entries must be given in by the end of Saturday 4th February 2017. The giveaway is also open internationally. Read this short post for more information.

I pounded my head against the desk again, frustrated at my lack of creativity. The word document open on my white laptop held the same sentence I’d deleted, rewritten, and deleted again before deciding it was actually decent enough to keep. #Irritating

I closed the document, and clicked on the internet icon knowing exactly where I was heading – Social Media. Twitter, Facebook, an update on the blogosphere, anything was better than having to scrunch my brain into writing something worthwhile.

Between self-doubt and procrastination feeding each other, I wasn’t getting very far. The blank wall always seemed infinitely more interesting than any drivel I was sure to waffle on about.

Writing as a craft was exciting, exhilarating, stupefying and damn terrifying. I was alone in my pursuit to create a masterpiece, saving all comments for when my manuscript was perfectly polished to my satisfaction. Only then could I really appreciate the feedback. That was until the seeds of doubt grew into a mighty tree, and the evil demon sitting on my shoulder grew into the devil.

Do you ever feel like your head has turned into a jumbled mess?

I’d read articles online in an attempt to ease the warring conflict of what I thought was right and wrong. Trying to find the answer to my harmony. Was I good enough?

My already gooey brain turned into an even bigger slush pile, as the articles contradicted one another. What was I supposed to believe now? I liked logistics, and I liked rules, but when they clashed it left me with a headache, and an uneasy stomach.

Advice. That’s what I needed. The best I ever got was to forget about the rules and just write. I soaked up information like a sponge, and what I thought was the right way to do something, wasn’t the right way for me. I flexed out my fingers like a pianist, and bashed away at the keyboard. Something was better than nothing.

The key role to writing was that it was personal. My way wasn’t your way, but I’d still get there in the end. And wasn’t that the point? To share our passions with readers?

Writing was as solitary as I made it, but I wasn’t alone. Not really. I couldn’t expect my writing to be perfect, when I wasn’t a perfect human. I was my own worst enemy, but it was time to loosen the reins a little.

“Whatever happens, happens. We can’t go back in time, and there’s no point in guessing what might happen, it’ll cloud your judgement and you’ll second-guess your motives. No good can come from that. You need to believe in yourself Luna.”
– Riley, Nature’s Destiny, coming 2014