Category Archives: Personal

Rules for Writers and Welcome My Return

By Annette Rey

Not the why, but the what. Ernest Hemingway

I am ashamed to come back to my blog and I am ashamed to have been gone from it for ten months. Not writing on it is the larger of my two embarrassments.

It takes nerve to come back after an absence. Part of what makes me return is to be an inspiration to others who have abandoned their work for any reason and need an example to show them they can resume their work online.

My absence has had nothing to do with writer’s block. As my site title indicates, I do not believe writer’s block exists, per se. I believe if we accept as concrete fact that something ethereal exists, that belief can affect us in a material way, positively or negatively.

In this case, the result would be negative. I would be stopped in my tracks if I gave credence to the belief that such a thing as writer’s block is real, as much as if I were paralyzed and fearful of a tiny spider. My reasoning tells me I am much larger than the spider and I have many options to deal with it.

I am not powerless.

I am resourceful!

Therefore, I keep my mind open and grab any object from my environment and there I have it – a topic to write about. I write encouragement to others and I exercise that encouragement toward myself.

If I had posted one to two times a week over the past ten months, I would have had to come up with forty to eighty ideas to write about. Sounds daunting stated that way, doesn’t it? But, I must have at least three ideas a day come to me, so if anything, I am at ease and ahead of the game at present.

Wasting no more words on reintroduction, allow me to regale you with a writer’s understanding and encouragement for other writers.

***

Number One Rule for Writers:  Never stop reading.

Reading is a writer’s food to build a healthy brain, to add to his education, to supply inspiration, to glean new ideas for your own writing from the pages you are reading.

In the past ten months I have read books on:

The psychological effects of architecture on the human psyche (dry but insightful),

The Frackers by Gregory Zuckerman (fascinating, an exciting look into the lives of innovators and our Earth’s geology),

1984 by George Orwell (believably scary),

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and various Jewish memoirs from the Holocaust (truthful history and truly scary),

Several books on the lives of medical examiners and the science of autopsies including the background on the massive coordination of equipment and people handling the human remains of 9/11 (all respectfully written and meaningful from many aspects),

The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehinger (no space between the J and R), (utterly humorous),

The psychopathy of criminals (a writer needs to know these things to make his characters and their interactions believable),

many books on writing (I am eager to share writing techniques with you),

books of quotations (food for thought),

trade and conservation magazines (a writer needs info that is up-to-date),

and more…

You get the idea. Be widely read. The more you know, the more easily the pen glides.

I will follow this post with more Rules for Writers and thoughts and partial reviews on many of the books I have read as that information relates to writers and writing ideas.

Welcome again, and get ready for a blast of knowledge.

It’s good to be back.

A Life Event Can Be a Writer’s Block

Blocks Aren’t Always Mental

By Annette Rey

Writing ideas are always in front of you, so dismiss the excuse of writer’s block. Sometimes, though, your writing can be utterly stopped when a crucial life event takes place.

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Life Gets in the Way

Read and Write

By Annette Rey

Hi, world,

My apology to you during this deep winter. I am sorry I have been absent for some months – family issues. As I have said in the past, life often gets in the way of writing.

But, on the upbeat, I am now focusing on my own writing – pursuing paying markets for short stories and essays and, hopefully, working toward my first book. That sentence sounds rather dubious. I have learned to speak specifically – it helps one to achieve goals. So, I correct that sentence by dropping the hopefully and toward and will, “…working on my first book.”

I will post once a week on this site with helpful hints for writers with the desire to give writers that one more little piece of information and encouragement that will help them along their writing path.

Today I pass along this tidbit. I’ve been told to read Thomas H. Cook’s work Red Leaves as a guide to study writing technique. It is a literary crime novel. I have not read this work yet, but that should not stop you from taking this hint and seeing what you can learn from it.

If you do read it, please let me know the discoveries you have made.

Please continue to check in. I will post every Saturday.

The best to all out there who are pursuing this most rewarding craft – writing.

Another Message to My Readers

It’s Tough to be Human

By Annette Rey

While I don’t like to discuss personal things on my site, I feel a mention should be made why I have not posted for nineteen days.

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A Writer’s Message to Her Readers

Hiatus Explanation

By Annette Rey

I have not been writing for a number of weeks because I have been grieving the loss of my brother. Clichés come to mind like: the event has taken the wind from my sails, down and out, and better to have loved and lost… We are warned as writers to avoid clichés, but sometimes they fill the bill; they have given me the opening I needed to begin writing again.

Writing, for me, is a personal therapy. Writing is an escape from my feelings and does not require I spend money on advice, or gasoline, or waste time driving to and from such errands. Any therapist will tell you two methods for coping with life’s sorrows are: find an activity to redirect your energy and then channel that energy into an activity that is meaningful to you.

For weeks I felt a disturbance in the force and was enervated. I told myself my brother would want me to heal, to find strength, and to write. But I also know, all things take time so I was patient with myself and did not force words to the page.

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