{"id":5857,"date":"2022-10-31T08:50:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T22:50:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=5857"},"modified":"2022-11-01T09:39:35","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T23:39:35","slug":"everyone-has-what-it-takes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=5857","title":{"rendered":"EVERYONE HAS WHAT IT TAKES"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/index.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-5856\" src=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/index.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"183\" height=\"275\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The difference between my life and a story is I don&#8217;t actually need drama and problems for it to have meaning. One of the well-kept secrets of writing is that when we&#8217;re really in The Flow, when we&#8217;re following that story and not trying to create it all by ourselves, writing isn&#8217;t hard at all. It&#8217;s the opposite of hard. And there&#8217;s also no problem. When I&#8217;m in that flow, I&#8217;m exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do, and life is just as I want it to be.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Short and sweet today. I have what seems to be a repetitive strain injury from &#8211; guess what? &#8211; too much writing. It&#8217;s that damned mouse! After a week of very little computer time or handwriting, it&#8217;s a bit better, but my mood is not great. And I have realised just how much I rely on my writing.<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a way I talk to myself &#8211; I vent or exult or enthuse or whinge &#8211; and that keeps me on an even keel. I explore ideas. I feel valid and professional, as if I actually know what I&#8217;m doing (I&#8217;m working, see? 1500 words this morning!). It keeps me occupied and off the streets. My writerly routines stop me from ruminating. When it goes well, I disappear to another place entirely, and I spin my own safely net from words.<\/p>\n<p>So, balked of writing, I have been reading. Lots of fiction. But also this lovely book &#8211;\u00a0 <em>Everyone Has What It Takes<\/em> by William Kenower. He tackles the subjects that haunt most writers; success and its Janus-face, failure. Getting published, getting rejected. Writing a best-seller, seeing your book remaindered. Being immersed in the creative flow, or sitting at your desk and feeling like you&#8217;re trying to get blood from a stone. At its core, Kenower&#8217;s message is quite radical. The key to writing success is not outlining or banning adverbs or finding the right agent. It&#8217;s love. Write the story you love, he says.<\/p>\n<p><em>If you love it, you have what you takes to write it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The difference between my life and a story is I don&#8217;t actually need drama and problems for it to have meaning. One of the well-kept secrets of writing is that when we&#8217;re really in The Flow, when we&#8217;re following &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=5857\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5859,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5857\/revisions\/5859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}