Daisy Dunn’s Advice to New Writers

TEMITOPE EMMANUEL AINA

Persevere. Go your own way. Be as harsh an editor of your own work as you can. For example, don’t become too wedded to anything you’ve written. Sometimes you’ll reach the end of the writing process and realise that those paragraphs you wrote at the beginning and felt so proud of are no longer working. Rewrite, but keep the originals in a back-up file. 

Charles Todd’s Advice to New Writers

TEMITOPE EMMANUEL AINA

Besides passing on the advice above, there’s one thing that’s important to keep in mind. Be as objective about your own writing as you can. Every one of us needs that little editor in our heads who pokes us and says, “That won’t work.” Or “That’s more than the reader needs to know—this is a mystery, not a travel guide.” Or ‘There you go again, riding your hobby horse!”  That editor will keep you on the right path. Ignore him/her at your own peril! We tend to love our own words sometimes and get carried away. That little editor needs to be encouraged, to get better and better at his or her job. And as he/she does, you will find you are writing better and better because you’ve learned to step aside and consider what’s best for the story.

One of the Hardest Things of All Is to Start

TEMITOPE EMMANUEL AINA

One of the hardest things of all is to start. Just sitting down and getting over your own intimidations. Every professional songwriter I know — people who do it 100% for their living — is terrified every time they sit down to write. You’re always convinced that your next song is going to be your last, or that it’s going to be your worst, or that you’ll never be able to write anything as good as your hit. It’s a constant terror. I think all artists live in a constant state of terror. And part of our job is to know our own chaos well enough to be able to make sense of it when you can. ~JANIS IAN