Permission to Write:

There are as many tips and tricks out there as there are writers, but I find that a lot of aspiring authors need two things in particular. (I, myself, needed one of them.) And they are both permissions. The permission TO write, and the permission to stink on ice WHILE writing.

I honestly didn’t feel I was a writer because I’d been taught (by an idiot, but that’s another story) that the only way you could write was to outline. I’d try to outline, and hours later have gibberish, and so concluded I wasn’t a writer. It took a friend who was already an author, poet, and journalist to tell me that I has as much “right” to write as anyone else. Her permission meant that I could write whatever and I felt that I was allowed to do so. So, for anyone reading this, if you’re in that same situation – I give you permission to write, whatever and however you want to, because you have just as much right to write as anyone else in the world.

I was already a successful businesswoman when I started writing, so I was well aware that the first stuff I wrote wasn’t going to be awesome. I knew then, just as I know now, that everyone needs to practice. No one starts out as Mozart other than Mozart himself. But time and time again I run into aspiring authors and even those who have started writing who feel that every word they write must be “perfect”. And that’s bullpookey.

Every author has a set number of words to write before they stop sucking. For most it’s in the hundreds of thousands. For some it’s in the millions. So the faster you write, the faster you get through your sucky words and into the good, then better, then better still, then publishable words. So, if you’re one of those who think that you have to somehow be as brilliant in your first attempts as Insert Name of Author You Adore Here, then I tell you that you don’t, and I give you permission to stink on ice for as long, and however many hundreds of thousands of words as it takes, for you to no longer stink.

There’s more, of course. There’s always more. But I’ll leave you with this one last thing, which relates to everyone’s favorite excuse: writer’s block.

It’s more important to write, even if it’s garbage, than it is to think about writing. Yes, thinking is necessary, but if your time spent thinking about writing exceeds your actual writing time, then you’re kidding yourself. Work out ideas in your head, sure, but be ready for them to change as you write them down. Don’t work out ideas in your head and just work them out as you write them down. Either way works. The key is that you write.

Should you suffer from writer’s block, the cure is simple – write. Sit your butt in your chair, and write something, anything. Remember – it doesn’t have to be good. No matter what level you’re at, there’s this thing we call editing and it means that you can write the worst crap in the world and it’s fixable. And if it’s not? If it’s the worst stuff ever written? No worries, you have permission to write that, remember. Just don’t publish it. No ideas? Write about that. Hate your idea? Write about that. Idea you’ve been saving? Write about that.

But still, write. Always write. The truth is simple: Writers write. So go on and be a writer.

A little more about Gini Koch: 

Gini Koch writes the fast, fresh and funny Alien/Katherine “Kitty” Katt series for DAW Books, the Necropolis Enforcement Files series, and the Martian Alliance Chronicles series for Musa Publishing. Alien in the House, Book 7 in her long-running Alien series, won the RT Book Reviews Reviewer’s Choice Award as the Best Futuristic Romance of 2013. Alien Collective, Book 9, released in May, and Universal Alien is coming this December. As G.J. Koch she writes the Alexander Outland series and she’s made the most of multiple personality disorder by writing under a variety of other pen names as well, including Anita Ensal, Jemma Chase, A.E. Stanton, and J.C. Koch. Buy her books — her meds don’t come free, you know.

Learn more about Gini and her books here : Website  | Twitter @GiniKoch | Facebook | Facebook Fan Page | Blah, Blah, Blah Blog | Official Fan Site

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Make sure to check out Gini’s newest Katherine “Kitty” Katt adventure.

Alien Collective

Katherine “Kitty” Katt #9

Amazon| B&N

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Gini Koch will give three winners their choice of one of the following in ebook format: The Night Beat, The Happy Acres Haunted Hotel for Active Seniors, A Cup of Joe (writing as Anita Ensal), Amazing & Waiting: Two Novelettes (writing as Jemma Chase), When Josie Comes Home (writing as A.E. Stanton), or Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters anthology (featuring a story writing as J.C. Koch). Contest is open internationally.

To Enter for a chance to win. 

Please leave a comment or question for Ms. Koch.  

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*this giveaway is sponsored by the author*

Make sure to check out all of the other stops on this month long tour HERE and enter the grand prize giveaway.