WRITING REMINDERS: FIRST, BE STRONG

Writing reminders are like the list for the grocery store.

Or the infamous ‘Honey Do’ list.

Check off the important things after you get them done.

These are the important things:

Follow Good Advice

This is not good advice. It’s sarcasm aimed toward online marketers making promises to unwitting rubes.

It usually comes from a manly man with manly credentials like Special Forces, SWAT Team, or former professional athlete.

The bro giving advice needs to portray themself as an expert in administering pain and suffering to bad people, and opponents.

Erica Schneider is not that bro, but she made a good list of ‘what to do.’

Just don’t do it.

Instead, turn the list into writing reminders.

Skip College To Be A Writer

Find a job that barely pays the rent in a bad neighborhood.

Cultivate a drinking and smoking habit.

Feel sorry for yourself for being such a loser-punk.

Now you’re ready to write, just don’t write about a loser punk, there’s enough of that around.

If you fall so far from any sense of grace and turn bitter, you’re a poet.

Now you can complain about how hard it is to be a poet in the bitter world you created for yourself. It’s a common theme:

He travels from the Midwest to New York to gain access to literature and to try to take the world by the throat.

His friend Humboldt has just died in a fleabag New York hotel.

Write a few stanzas on the stink of a t-shirt you’re slept in for three days. I’ll start:

“The sour stench was near my head, reminding me of something dead.”

It’s either that shirt, or your dreams succumbing to your bad planning.

Every time I see a picture of Charles Bukowski I see laundry issues and bad hygiene. I believe it’s intentional, part of his ‘brand.’

Bukowski’s work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work.

Bukowski attended Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting at the start of World War II. He then moved to New York City to begin a career as a financially pinched blue-collar worker with dreams of becoming a writer.

Doesn’t everyone run off to New York with writer dreams?

He didn’t skip college, for what it’s worth, and still found his writer’s voice.

Your Writer’s Voice Is Not My Writer’s Voice

The ‘Writer’s Voice’ is what makes you turn one page, then another, and another.

My writer’s voice is on display on boomerpdx.

For better or worse, I’m chasing it.

How do you know when you find your writer’s voice? When you’re satisfied you’ve done your best work? When you get paid? Or, when your wife wants to talk about something you’ve written.

Around here I judge my writer’s voice based on engagement. I’ve got a voice if someone leaves a comment. I call it a voice when a post gets thousands of hits.

I take no credit for the top piece because it gained readers through a reddit link.

The second is about manners in a Men’s Dressing Room that’s a perennial favorite I update.

My third best comes from readers on Newsbreak.com. How did this happen?

It’s about a notorious Portland street where a wedding occurred, but not just any wedding.

World Of Writing Reminders

Everything we read is a writing reminder of, “Is anyone reading you like you’re reading right now?”

Everything we see is a reminder of, “This would make a good story.”

What’s for dinner? A good story.

Where are we going? To a good story.

I’ve found stories in travel to the tune of 400 posts. And I haven’t gone that far.

Illness covers around ninety posts. Why? Because sick people need some hope to get over their problems. And not everyone gets an intervention from hell to pull them back from the edge.

The good news is I’ve posted 580 pieces on health.

Too many people have a writing dream but forget the work part.

They spend time looking for writing mentors, taking writing classes, anything to avoid the harsh truth of they suck. Followed by quitting, giving up, walking away.

The best writing reminder I’ve seen?

“Good writers re-write, great writers re-write a lot.”

Now, excuse me while I read this post, re-write it five times, then delete it because it sucks.

Really? No.

Leave a comment if this speaks to you, and I’ll write back.

If you leave a comment, make it a good one because it will reach twenty countries and forty-five states, and we don’t want to disappoint them, any of them.

Give it a shot. I’ll start one for you,

“Dear David, who died and made you King of Writing Reminders?”

I’ll answer comments after I warm up: