Welcome to the page that houses the 2019 #GBWritesWithOthers guest blogging initiative! Established in April 2019, it was created to help boost writers at all levels in their careers through pure community effort.
Views and topics are those of their authors.
When I was eighteen, I experienced a summer of change and uncertainty. I was living out the last season of my teenage years, and was anticipating my first year of art school in the fall. It was then when I would begin my first leg of my journey to live out a teenage dream: to become a graphic novelist and be recognized for the stories I told.
Looking back, I have to wonder if I was young and optimistic, or young and dangerously delusional.
I actually struggled quite a bit with the topic for this post. I blog often enough. I contribute to Tory's blog all the time. For me, ideas tend to show up out of nowhere - some happening will inspire a series of thoughts, which ultimately leads to an 'aha' moment, then I whip out my phone and type notes like a madman. However, the thought of writing a guest post for someone else's site added a new element of pressure for some reason, and I couldn't figure out why. I pondered this over my morning coffee (on the due date for this post, with nary a word written), and I ultimately related this to a similar experience I’ve had when writing fiction. It all came together at once, then I knew what I wanted to write about.
I remember the first time I was given notes as a television writer. I was pitching a spec script for the show Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, starring Kevin Sorbo. I had the episode set in the dead of winter, starting with an evil wizard conjuring up an abominable snowman that was going to fight Hercules.
I had an alternate take for a potential plot-twist though: it was never actually an abominable snowman, but actually just a group of harmless woodland creatures who had accidentally gotten tangled up in a giant snowball during the snowstorm and were inadvertently wreaking havoc.
“I’m done.”
It was the title of a post I read three years ago. A woman had written her cozy, romantic mystery, self-published it, and didn’t have anything left.
“I’ve invested everything I can in this story, and now it’s done, I’m shutting down all my social media platforms. There just isn’t another story inside me, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”
She wasn’t the first one, and she won’t be the last.
When I say relative discontentment I’m not talking about being discontent with your relatives, although I fully understand that for some people that particular struggle is very real. What I’m talking about here is being discontent compared to those around you. This is something I have observed and pondered over for many years and goes hand in hand with some rather odd human behaviour.
I imagine most of you have been on a roller coaster at some point in your life. Chances are there are a few of you who are either too terrified to get on a roller coaster again, or at the very least, despise having to get on one to appease your friends, family, or your kids. Where even if you cry, you’ll get through it, but just hate that being a necessity.
For my wife, every day is a roller-coaster ride.
The vast variety of social media platforms makes it easier than ever to get your message in front of people. It’s essentially the perfect advertising option a writer can use to promote their works. Put yourself out there, press a button and, voila, interested readers will come running, throwing their money at you and demanding more books!
Hi, I'm Trey Stone, author and writer of things.
I always liked writing, since I was very young, and I recall writing my first little folded-paper-stapled-together book when I was around 8. I started my first real story when I was a teenager, but it never got anywhere (which I'll honestly say might be have been for the better). In 2015 I started writing my very first book, which I self-published in 2017.
I'm very grateful that I was considered for a guest spot on this blog session. I try to do what I can to carve out my own little space in this vast world of writers, and when things like this happen I feel like I'm doing something right.
The writing community is as creatively diverse as communities come. We’re discovery writers and outliners who make flowery prose or sentences so sharp n’ short they’re daggers. That’s not even getting into genre, voice or audience. But if I were tasked to find one thing that connects us all, I’d point to the uncanny way writers struggle with rejection when really, we should love it. You might have noticed that this article is posted on April first, but I assure you it’s no joke. If you’re a writer, indie or traditional, I think you should want rejection too.
Let me tell you why.
When I have written in the past, it felt like I was trying to prove myself by rehashing my life’s traumas. My life has been filled with extremes, and as much as I would like to rewind and rewrite it, there is no changing it. I’m not interested in woundology, and by that, I mean sharing my wounds so much so that I am perpetuating victimhood in myself or in anyone else. That space doesn’t feed me. I am interested in overcoming challenges and encouraging my fellow humans to walk in their own harmony regardless of what life has handed them. Because of the extreme nature of my past, I have had to take a life or death approach to mental, physical and spiritual wellness.
