Advice to Writers: Gustave Flaubery

The Artist Must Raise Everything to a Higher Level

The artist must raise everything to a higher level: he is like a pump; inside him is a great pipe reaching down into the bowels of things, the deepest layers. He sucks up what was pooled beneath the surface and brings it forth into the sunlight in giant sprays.

-GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

This is very good advice. A person must challenge themselves with writing. Write genres you are not familiar with along with the genres you are familiar with. Write something new that is completely away from the ordinary things a person you read. To survive in this business, you have to do completely different things as possible.

Unearthly Cynthia Hand

Angels are everywhere now it appears, and stealing the thunder from vampires. First it was vampires, then werewolves, then fairies, now it angels who are floating to the shelves at Barnes and Noble. I was very curious about this book because the cover was so mysterious looking I had to see what it was about.

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

The book had been sitting on my bookshelf for a very long time, I hadn't had the chance to read it until now, but the book needed some major work. It took a bit of getting past the first fifty pages for the plot to thicken. Then as I gt further into the story, I found the storyline to get dull and uninteresting, there weren't any plot twists added at all to make the story more unique. In terms of quality it wasn't so horrible but I have read better angel books. I hope the second book in the trilogy will be better.

I DID IT! NaNoWriMo 2011

I am still in shock. I cannot believe in a month I wrote over 55,000 words in a month thank you very muchl. Now its not really a complete novel, it's a draft. But it's a start for the story I've been itching to write for a long time. I know when I go back and look at that draft it's going to be dreadful to look at, but I can at least get some accomplishment in the feeling that I wrote my first book.