{"id":8701,"date":"2019-11-21T01:00:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-21T08:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=8701"},"modified":"2019-11-20T15:22:30","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T22:22:30","slug":"start-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/start-small\/","title":{"rendered":"Start Small"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s\nbrilliant post is by Nancy Julien Kopp:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m a\nproponent of starting with small projects and moving on, step by step, to the\nbigger ones. Many writers dream of publishing a novel or a full book memoir.\nSome will start out their writing journey by beginning the pursuit of that\ndream immediately. It’s fine to have a worthy goal, but diving in the deep end\nbefore you know how to swim can bring big problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start small.\nWrite a personal essay or memoir about an occurrence, something that happened\nand had some meaning for you. Later, it might become a part of the book you\nhope to write. Those little snippets of memoir can grow into something much\nlarger, as can your personal experiences that taught you a lesson, as we see in\npersonal essays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Novelists can\npractice their skill by writing short stories before attempting a full novel.\nLots of short stories. Use all the tools you have as a writer to write a good\nshort story, then submit it. If you have some success in selling your short\nstories, it could very well be time to begin writing the novel you’ve been\nthinking about for a very long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many writers\nwant to start with the big project, to write a memoir or a novel before writing\nanything else. They have read many books. How hard can it be? Some will begin\nby reading a book or two on writing novels (or memoirs), and that’s fine.\nOthers will not bother with reading a book about how to write a novel. They’ll\nstart with chapter one, page one. A few might do very well with this method,\nbut most are going to run into one roadblock after another. At some point, the\nwhole thing could become overwhelming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that\nhappens, step back and work on smaller projects for a while. Read some of those\nreference books on writing a memoir or novel. Attend a workshop about the same.\nTalk to other writers. Gather all the information you can before you tackle\nthat big idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my\nkeywords is patience. Don’t be in such a hurry to tackle the big game\nplan. Take your time, learn as you go, but continue to keep the original goal\nin mind. Start on the big scheme when you feel ready. With some success at\nsmaller projects, you’ll have some confidence in your ability to take on the\nbig one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nancy Julian Kopp<\/a> has been published in 22 Chicken Soup for the Soul books, several anthologies including The Write Spot: Possibilities<\/em>, newspapers, magazines and ezines. Her writing includes award-winning fiction for children, creative nonfiction, poetry, travel and personal essays. \u00a0She was named Prose Writer of the Year in 2013 by the Kansas Authors Club. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s brilliant post is by Nancy Julien Kopp: I’m a proponent of starting with small projects and moving on, step by step, to the bigger ones. Many writers dream of publishing a novel or a full book memoir. Some will start out their writing journey by beginning the pursuit of that dream immediately. It’s fine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[1140,1275],"class_list":["post-8701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-nancy-julien-kopp","tag-writer-grannys-world"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2gl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8703,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8701\/revisions\/8703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}