The Post Pandemic Writer's World

As a writer, how are you planning on entering the post-pandemic era? You're just going to continue writing? Really?  I think that you will find that you have changed - that your perspectives on life have changed. As your perspectives change, so will your character's perspectives, their needs, and their challenges. The world that you live in has changed drastically, and so will the world your characters live in.

It doesn't matter whether your characters are living in our current time, or if your story is placed several years back. As writers, we allow the story to flow through us. But we still have a basic way of looking at things that the current pandemic has altered. We are living in a world of face masks, isolating at home, restaurants that, when they open, will be only 50% capacity, with wait-staff wearing face masks. Schools are closed, with learning done on a digital basis. We may have a postal service that we cannot recognize. More people may be working from home, many people will remain out of work. There will be a mandatory six-foot social distancing, no handshaking, and massive use of hand sanitizer.

Travel may or may not be restricted, airlines will have a whole new set of rules, and hotels/motels may not offer the amenities that they now offer. Many businesses, both small and large, will be closing, This is the background against which we are writing our stories. Can we step away from that background and feel comfortable writing stories based in the past - even in the recent past?    

What I am doing is journaling - a little bit each day - to see where I am in life, and how I am handling all of these changes. This is how I stay grounded and centered, and get a better perspective on what I need to work on personally. As I grow as a person, my hope is that I will grow as a writer. 

It is hard for any of us to be creative in difficult times. When our creative efforts are focused on finding toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and face masks, writing takes a bit of a back seat. But we need to keep our lives as normal as possible, and for writers that means that we need to continue to write. Continue to write, continue to edit, continue to publish, continue to promote. This is who we are!

(c) May 2020 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.

A Writer's Muse

As a Cappie, I have a somewhat unique sense of humor. So yes, I think the cartoon above is funny! In reality, I think that all writers go through this from time to time. Whatever is getting in our way, we just need to work our way through. We just need to "Write the %&!$@# story!". 

So what exactly is this magical muse that is going to come along and save our butts? Where do we find him/her? And at what cost? Our muse supposedly helps us to be more creative, to put the ultimate spin on things so that our work sells. (That is the point, after all!) One way of looking at our muse is that we are simply connecting with our inner child. I don't know about you, but my inner child needs help from time to time! 

We need to do two things - allow ourselves to be creative enough to come up with amazing plots that have not been worked to death, and characters that our readers can connect with. So what if our characters have a fatal flaw - they are real! Our readers will cheer for them! Then we take all of this bizarre, creative stuff and visit the logical side of our brain so that we can place everything in proper order so that it at least looks like it could actually happen.

By this time we are starting to feel as if we might be developing multiple personalities. As long as no one else realizes this, we are okay. We can pull this all together by recognizing that our creative muse resides in our unconscious - that it can access our dreams, and our hidden memories.  Our muse will appear to us however it wants to - we just need to go with the flow. 

Our muse (our unconscious self) and our critic (our conscious self) have to work together to meld everything into a story that makes sense, has depth (without falling off the edge), and entertains. Above all, to sell, our stories need to entertain.

Never be afraid to allow both your muse and your critic free reign. They will come to an understanding, and you will be putting amazing stories out there!

(c) May 2019 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author. 

How Do We Define Success As Authors?

To all of my author friends - how do you view success? Is it the amount of books that you sell? Is it your Amazon ranking? Is it the amount of followers that you have on social media? Is it the amount of people subscribing to your newsletter? Is it successful podcasts? Is it being asked to be a guest on another author's podcast? Is it being able to book signings? Is it being asked to give talks? Is it publishing two or more books per year? What exactly allows you to feel successful? 

I see success as being able to sit down and write consistently, to have a fluid story line and interesting characters, and to have a finished product that is as well written as it can be, without typo's or grammatical errors. Newsletters, social media, blogs, podcasts, marketing - this bogs me down, it doesn't make me feel successful. Amount of books sold (and money made)? To me, this is an end product of having written an interesting book.

I write every day (with no set number of words or pages that I need to accomplish), I allow myself to be creative (I can always go back and edit), I write about things that interest me (which is why my mysteries will have a tendency to include metaphysical side-roads), and I set my own personal deadlines. The deadlines can always be extended, but if I find myself doing that too often, I have to admit that I just might not be interested in the project at all. I also set goals for my writing, and make an effort to meet them. 

I recognize that for me other people will be part of my success - of what makes me feel successful. Some of these people will be people that I bounce ideas off of. Some will be people that I can use as reliable resources - I have three individuals in mind for my WIP. One individual is a pilot that owns his own airline. He can help me make sure that a small but important part of my WIP (flying in and out of private airports) will be accurate. Two more individuals are people that I am going to ask to be Beta readers. I need people that function in the writing world, but also understand the metahysical world. 

As an author - how do you define success?

(c) July 2018 Bonnie Cehovet

Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.