Fiction genre colour wheel

What a writer needs to complete a story (from one learning as she goes)

• Practice
• A good vocabulary
• Time
• Ideas
• Ability to spot mistakes
• Eye for detail
• Patience
• Ability to consider being alone for long periods of time as pleasant
• Data entry skills
• Editing skills
• Ability to cope with repetition
• Ability to set your own hours
• Ability to set your own details
• Contacts within the publishing world
• Knowledge of reader demands and expectations
• Knowledge of publisher demands and expectations
• Imagination
• Obsession
• Excess mental energy (whatever shape it takes)
• Someone to help remind you of things like eating, cleaning, chores, paying bills, shopping etc. when you forget or get too engrossed in writing to tear yourself away
• Financial support if you don't have a job or savings and want to write more often than on trains or at night
• A comfortable spot to call your own (room or no, window or no)
• Personal knowledge on how to get started putting down complicated ideas
• An initial blast of energy
• An ability to keep reworking the same project over and over
• Ability to put on a personable front for meetings and public occasions
• Ability to use social media properly
• No fear of the phone
• Ability to research
• To keep track of industry trends
• Ability to view your work objectively and realistically
• Ability to avoid procrastinating
• Love of lists
• Ability to find silence or background noise whenever needed
• Ability to set aside your love of other people's stories long term to work on your own

Otherwise:

• A laptop or computer
• Tonnes of paper
• Pencils and pens
• Erasers
• Your mind (for the most part)
• More time than you'll believe

Writing on the porch in the morning

There was no way I could resist the call of the morning sun. Bob looked so happy I just had to join him. I love having a laptop as I never could write in on a porch with my old PC complete with blocky monitor.


I have to say, aside from making sure the screen doesn't reflect the sun so much I can't see what I'm writing, this is really pleasant. I can even watch my own hands typing. It makes you want to keep on typing just to see them dance around. It's almost like they're not my own. Yes, yes, I know. Simple things... I've been told many times.


Writing hazard warning: writing while sitting on a porch when a cat is about means the cat will want your lap.