fracas

(The kitty being me of course….) 

Neil, from The Other Side of the River has passed me a meme-disseminated award: A Roar for Powerful Words. The award was created by The Shameless Lions Writing Circle to spread awareness of good and powerful writing on the Internet. Neil got it from Mister Peace, who got it from Kate Boddie, who got it from Wordsmith at Musings from the Mitten, who got it from Michele at Writing the Cyber Highway… and, well… I thought I’d throw them a little link luv too.

Oh. One more thing.

Over at A Roar for Powerful Words, the award is available in different colors and sizes to please all.

The rules are really straightforward:

1. Link back to the person that tagged you in your post.
2. List three things that you believe are necessary to make writing good and powerful.
3. Tag five other people via comment.

Now, I know that most of what I write here is fluff, fun and frolic for the fracalicious fiends who frac for fun. I am though, one who can and has written serious pieces both off and online. I, because Neil has always been a faithful fraccer who asks little of the fracas, am pleased to participate for him.

1. Passion

You must have passion for your subject. Indeed, one can write about anything if one is a writer at heart. Paid posts, ad copy, a column written on deadline, and so on. It can be done, but rarely does one read those types of articles and have to take a breath when done, knowing they’ve just been allowed the equivalent of the fly on the wall, into that person’s soul. No, if you want the reader to forget where they are, be swept towards that place where you and you alone wanted them to go; if you want them to get to the end and know they’ve been touched… you must write what you have a passion for.

2. Homework

Whether your passion is a political subject, a matter of health or education, or whether your passion is to write the next great epic romance, you will have to do homework. Nothing spoils it for your reader more than to stumble across inconsistencies or inacuracies. It might be to know how a particular character would have dressed, or to know how a statistic makes your point, but you do need to be concerned that you have your facts straight. Even writers of science fiction and fantasy have to do their homework. If it’s a new language you must create for an alien species or the details of how warp drive functions… no writer gets away without doing their homework.

3. Resilience

Every writer faces criticism. You can’t let it break you down. You can’t ignore it, for there may be constructive portions that will help you if you can be objective, but never let it get you down. For every writer, there is a reader. You must find your talent, understand your passion, do your homework and use the criticism to become better, not give up. 

And to complete this project, I must tag five people. Sometimes I randomly tag people on my (blog)fracroll and sometimes I don’t tag at all. Sometimes I even tag total strangers. Today, I’m tagging The Hungry Ghost, Romi over at Year of the Chick, Georga, Before I Am Famous, and Angela… all who are on the fraccy fuelroll which will soon be integrated into the fracroll here. I’ve tagged you because I think what you have to say would be a benefit to others too, so go grab your award from the main site (if you don’t like the color of this one) and display your three tidbits of advice to writers.