{"id":598,"date":"2012-07-02T23:15:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-02T23:15:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/index.php\/2012\/07\/02\/blog201203\/"},"modified":"2012-07-02T23:15:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-02T23:15:23","slug":"blog201203","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/blog201203\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing with Ferocity: An Author\u2019s Manifesto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Warrior_woman\"A writing career isn\u2019t for the faint-hearted. It\u2019s for the tough. It\u2019s for the ferocious.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll find yourself writing things that you never meant to write, and defending things that you never knew needed to be defended. Your words, however gentle, will cause harm to somebody\u2019s soul. They\u2019ll rake nails across exposed nerves, summoning up past traumas. The reader will put your work down and cry. You may never know this. Or maybe they\u2019ll tell you, and you\u2019ll feel like you\u2019ve gutted a kitten.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your ideas, no matter how brutal, will cause others to laugh. You can rant and snarl and claw about the injustices that you see, the brutalities that you\u2019ve suffered, but you won\u2019t be taken seriously. \u201cIsn\u2019t it sweet that the writer feels so much emotion,\u201d somebody will say, and tie a bow around your neck. You\u2019ll know what it\u2019s like to feel unadulterated hate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to finish a project. You\u2019ll go it alone. You\u2019ll be tempted by vacations, TV shows, loved ones who want you to come to bed early. You\u2019ll need to think and be clear-headed while you\u2019re worried about unpaid bills, your daughter\u2019s wheelchair, and the evacuation notice in your home town.<\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll be criticized. You\u2019ll be pitied. Teased, lauded, and hated by turns. You\u2019ll be put on an unrealistic pedestal. Mainly you\u2019ll be ignored, and there isn\u2019t anything worse than being ignored.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you\u2019ll go on. Vomiting words, bleeding ideas. You don\u2019t write because of the money. There isn\u2019t any. You don\u2019t write for the fame because there are more writers in the ether than sharks in the ocean. You write because it\u2019s a need, because there\u2019s a sharp piece missing in your soul if you aren\u2019t working on something. Then you\u2019re a waste, a nonentity, and you won\u2019t stand for that. You\u2019re not the kind to shuffle through life. You\u2019re a writer. You\u2019re a warrior.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Mercedes\"<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mercedes M. Yardley<\/span><\/strong> writes whimsical horror.  <\/span>She has been published in several venues and is the nonfiction editor for Shock Totem Magazine<\/em><\/span>. You can reach her at www.mercedesyardley.com<\/a>. Her first collection of short stories comes out this fall.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writing career isn\u2019t for the faint-hearted. It\u2019s for the tough. It\u2019s for the ferocious. You\u2019ll find yourself writing things that you never meant to write, and defending things that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c40-myblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbwood.com\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}