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Sam Sykes

41 quotesNovelist · United States Of America · Male

Sam Watkins is an American epic fantasy writer who publishes fiction as Sam Sykes. His debut trilogy of novels, the Aeons' Gate series, was appreciated by critics for its characterization and dialogue, and for its deconstruction of standard fantasy tropes, but criticized for its meandering, derivative plot. He is the son of Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander serie

All Writing (17)Writing Advice (9)Life (7)Writing Tips (6)Stories (5)writing a novel (5)characters (5)emotions (4)Writer's Truth (4)Books (4)Novels (4)humor (4)characters in a story (3)Mental Health (3)Writing As A Career (3)

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Realtalk: Writing is a career. It has a community. You have colleagues. To suggest that you don't need or shouldn't want any of these things is ridiculous. Colleagues help each other out.

Writing Writing As A Career writing community Writer's Truth

A writing career is like a pangolin driving a semi truck through a taco bell. Everyone is very impressed, but no one stops to think how many fortunes had to align to make that happen.

Writing writer's experience writer's journey writer's life writer's struggle

A lot of aspiring writers ask me about how much they should be writing per day. The answer, of course, is about half as much as you spend rolling on the floor and sobbing.

Writing Writing Advice humor

If you're having trouble writing fight scenes, I wholeheartedly recommend watching any Jackie Chan movie. Study not only how the choreography keeps things moving across a screen, but also how much emotion he conveys in a fight.

Writing Writing Advice Writing Techniques Writing Tips

Something we don't talk about when it comes to worldbuilding is the power of NOT explaining something. Sometimes, just throwing out a word and letting the audience wonder what that could be is a good thing.

worldbuilding Stories Writing writing a novel writing a story

Writing a plot is super easy. First, think of a character. Then, think of what they want. Then, spend 600-odd pages keeping them from getting it.

Writing Writing Advice Writing Tips writing a novel writing a story

Tonight I sat down to write and found nothing happening. This has happened to me ten thousand times before and no time has it ever been helped by berating myself, yet that's immediately what I did. It's weird how this job induces selective amnesia.

Writing Writing Problems writing truth Writer's Truth writing a novel

Ideally, every event in a book should serve a purpose. But it’s totally fine to write a scene because you want to and figure out its purpose later.

Writing Writing Advice writing a novel

Tools for Writing: 1. Computer 2. Thesaurus 3. Shovel 3a. Hole you dig in your yard to escape the terror that your writing might simply be screaming into a void from which no sound, nor dream escapes 3b. None at all 4. Coffee or tea (gotta have that caffeine!)

Writing writing tools humor

Worldbuilding works when it's used to facilitate imagination. It doesn't work when it's used to stifle it. The goal is to make it seem like the world is alive and exists with or without you. When it's used as a gate to insist that certain things couldn't happen, then it no longer serves a purpose…

worldbuilding Writing Writing Tips Writing Advice writing is a craft

A novel has roughly six stages of 'done.' 1: 'I know how it ends, but not how to do it.' 2: 'I know how to do it, but haven't written it.' 3: 'I wrote it, but it sucks.' 4: 'I wrote it again, but it needs work.' 5: 'I finished the work, but I'm still not happy.' 6: 'good enough'

Writing writing process writing a novel Writing Consciously writing truth

I always prefer writing about people. People grow, change and sometimes change back, but they remain persistently irritating and open-ended until they die. And sometimes afterward, too.

Writing writing preference writing process

Protip: If you write a bunch of words you hate, it doesn't make you a bad writer. Sometimes you have to write a lot of bad to figure out what's good.

Writing Writing Tips Writing Advice

WRITING PROTIP: Finding it hard to maintain concentration? Just stop thinking about all the ways it could fail and how the world might be completely destroyed before you finish!

Writing Writing Tips Writing Advice keep writing

There is absolutely zero way to predict how your creative career will go. You could be read by a producer and get a movie tomorrow. You could hit it big 10 years from now. No one knows. The anxiety, of course, comes from the fact that it's hard to plan a future around something no one knows anything…

Creative Life creative career Writing Writing As A Career Writer's Truth

A good exercise is to take everything out of the scene you’re writing, leaving only the dialogue, and see if you can still tell who’s talking.

Writing Writing Advice Writing Tips writing dialogues

If you view the writing process as a creative wellspring from which ideas simply come out fully-formed and beautiful, you'll be disappointed. If you view it as a craft you work on and can improve, you'll know a bad day of writing is something you can fix.

Writing Writing Advice writing is a craft

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