Writing Advice From the Trenches

tyunglebower ♦ March 7, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

Much of what I post here is for writers or those curious about writing. No secrets there. But it comes with this caveat; I am a foot soldier in the trenches of the writing landscape.

Is this a war? In some ways, but it’s not the ideal metaphor. I use it in the sense that writing is not only a fight or a struggle of sorts, but one that by. many metrics I am neither winning no losing per se. I am just an unknown doing his very best to get over an increasingly muddy, challenging hill. Firing at me constantly are lack of connections, notoriety, resources, fame and so on. You know, many of the things people expect from a writer in order to care in the slightest about their advice.

I am no general in this fight. I am not even an officer for that matter. A volunteer, yes, but one that offers the only perspective he has for you for the time being–that of someone plugging along with many many others en masse as we hope to obtain the same goal of increased readership and recognition. And because we are not officers, we can only dig, climb, shoot, duck, repeat.

We blog. We post to writing websites. We publish and market out own work as best we can. We steel ourselves against the potent discouragement of not getting where we want to be while continuing to insist on attaching our names to quality, memorable work. Work that perhaps one day will transcend the life in time in which we toil for appreciation and recognition of any consistency.

Oh, my advice and thoughts on the craft will parallel much of what the “generals” would say. The influencers and the viral sensations sometimes attain their rank through such endeavors and knowledge. Yet while some may have forgotten, (or never knew) the essence of subjecting themselves to the proverbial barrage of ignored or forgotten writing, or at best small-to-modest readership, I live that life every day. Year after year in most cases I gain not miles, not even feet, but inches over challenging terrain. Inch by exhausting, discouraging inch.

My advice and offerings spring from that experience. And if you too feel like you are still fighting in the lowest, hottest, dirtiest parts of the writing battlefield, not wanting to give up everything and still hungry for how to improve your craft if not your lot, what I say and consider here may be for you.

I can offer you honesty even if I cannot offer you glamor. Mind to word, word to page, page to book, I have opinions and warnings to share.

Are you also enlisted personnel fighting for every inch?