3 Types of Writers You Should Know

I’ve learned a lot studying for my MBA, from marketing techniques to filling out an Excel spreadsheet. Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out that second one. It’s a steep learning curve. But one of the things I’ve enjoyed so much about the course is the way the professors encouraged each student to study what they’re interested in—particularly the area of business they wanted to pursue.

My interest lies with publishing and book retail. I did projects on various companies, from Bloomsbury Children’s Publishing to Barnes & Noble to my own idea for an independent bookstore.

One particular piece of advice that I’ve taken from my studies has been concerning leadership and learning. If you want to improve your skill, you should know three different types of people. And I thought, “Hey! This can apply to writing as well.” So I’ve put the following categories into writer’s terms.

The Student: A Writer with Less Skill

When it comes to learning, one of the best teachers is experience. Another is teaching. I’ve heard it said that if you can’t explain a concept in simple terms, then you don’t really understand it.

Not only do students help me refresh my memory on a concept I’ve heard about a million times (e.g. what is POV?), but they also teach me things I may have forgotten or may have missed (e.g. new words!). When it comes to classes where I’ve taught writing, I like to review the material myself and do extra research so I really know what I’m talking about. The same goes for editing or beta reading. Just because I may have been writing for years doesn’t give me an excuse not to pick up my Chicago Style Handbook, Writing the Breakout Novel, or even the dictionary.

Yes, talking to a less-skilled writer may make you feel smart, but it’s also a great way to pass on knowledge.

The Ally: A Writer with the Same Skill Level

The allies are perhaps the most fun to hang out with. No offense to the mentors or the students, but it’s easiest to make references and jokes when you better understand where the person is coming from.

Writers with a similar skill level also make great critique partners. That’s not saying you shouldn’t have somebody with more skill look over your writing. You probably should. Writers whom you can easily relate with are pretty good at catching mistakes you may have missed and critiques are easier to receive when they come from your peers.

That and when you’re done talking about your stories—Haha! That’ll never happen—you can talk about the latest books you’re reading.

The Mentor: A Writer with More Skill

I like to think of myself as a humble writer, but if I’m going to be completely honest, sometimes I can be particularly arrogant. I’ve been writing since I was twelve; I earned an M.A. in English Literature; and I’ve self-published a novelette series. (See, I even know what novelette means!)

Recently, I was put in charge of the writing group at my local library, and I was super excited to kick off our get together for the fall. Two people aside from myself showed up, one of whom is a published author (with an agent and everything!). When we got around to talking about querying agents, the author switched into teacher-mode and went into some of the details I feel like I’d heard or read countless times before. I wanted to say I already knew what she was talking about, but I kept my mouth shut for the benefit of the other writer who hadn’t heard it.

I had to remind myself that sometimes it’s okay to listen to advice instead of show off what I already know. Even though the meeting didn’t go quite as I expected, I still walked away with some valuable advice on showing emotion in writing, something I’ve struggled with for a while.

Mentors help keep writers humble. At least they do for me. While they can also make me feel uncomfortable sometimes, what with my lack of skill or review of concepts I already know, they can still help me learn.

If you haven’t already, find a writing mentor. You don’t have to go and stalk the writer closest to you (actually, please don’t), but ask for advice. This mentor can be a teacher, an indie author, a traditionally published author—so long as they have more experience than you. You may just learn something.

Let’s chat! How many of the writer types do you know? When’s the last time you talked with a writing mentor? What are they like?

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Similar posts: How to Write What You Know Without Writing Nonfiction, Why Writers Should Study Their Craft, and 7 Facts About Critique Partners (For Writers!)

Grades, Grad School, & Goals: Studying Abroad in Germany

Usually this is the time of the month when I post a book review, but alas, I haven’t had the time to discover many new books lately. In fact, not long ago there was a period of two weeks where I read a grand total of twenty pages. *gasp* Was I dying? Yes, I was. I blame school and work. Note to self: don’t work two jobs and take six credit hours and then invite a friend over to visit. It’s a trap! Somehow, I’m still alive.

When I was a kid, I used to calculate how long it would take me to get out of school. If the average student finished high school at eighteen, and college lasted four years, I should be done by twenty-two. As it turns out, my life took another direction. I didn’t stop after my undergraduate, and now I’m studying for my Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.), my second graduate degree. And when I say I’m studying abroad, I’m actually studying at an American university this time. I just happen to live overseas.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a degree-chaser though. There are days when I get tired of schoolwork and academia and want to light my Writer’s Reference book (the one with all the formats: APA, MLA, etc.) on fire. But as I’m anti-book burning—no matter the book—I will happily watch it collect dust after graduation instead.

Just kidding! I’ve been thinking about going back for another degree. (Maybe I am a degree-chaser?) This time, I’m thinking about a PhD in library sciences. I just have so many questions. Why the Dewey Decimal System? How is it decided whether a book is deemed a classic and placed in nonfiction or still a classic and place in fiction? How can I help budding readers discover the joy of reading?

There are so many things to learn!

That being said, here are just a few things my M.B.A. has taught me:

Not everybody knows what M.B.A. means.

Me: I’m studying for my M.B.A. 

Person: Cool! What’s that in? 

Me: …Business. 

Person: Oh. Pretend I didn’t just ask that. 

(An actual conversation I had.)

I listed it above, but I’ll repeat it—M.B.A stands for Masters of Business Administration. As a military brat, I’ve had to explain that a commissary is a grocery store, and as a writer, I’ve had to explain that Deus ex Machina is the ending of a book that’s solved too easily by some greater force. Academia also has its own lingo.

I don’t care about grades anymore.

When I said this to one of my classmates, she just stared at me like I sprouted another head. But it’s true. After studying in England, where receiving 50 out of 100 is a pass, I’ve learned that it’s not so much the number but rather the learning experience that counts. Instead of focusing on achieving a grade, I try to focus on learning something new, whether it’s how to input finances into an Excel spreadsheet or how to confront an obnoxious classmate about inappropriate behavior.

It’s okay to change career directions.

I started my M.B.A. with the mindset that it would help me in the writing industry. Then, I wanted to start my own editing company. Now, I’m considering opening my own bookstore. I had, in fact, mentioned this final idea to one of my friends when I first visited Oxford. We were walking along the River Thames, watching the horses trot across the fields and the weeping willow branches sway across the water and talking about our dreams and all the possibilities we could achieve.

Things changed when I started my M.A. in English Literature. I moved to England to learn about stories and dragons, and I did. But I also learned about how hard it is for bookstores to survive today. I watched one of the bookstores on one of my college’s campuses close for a while. On Easter Break, my family and I visited Naples, where we got to walk along via San Biagio dei librai (“Saint Biagio of the book sellers’ street”), a street once famous for having hundreds of bookstores but now has only a few. At school, I borrowed most of my books from the library and bought the copies I wanted on Amazon or at the school bookshop.

I wondered how independent bookstores today could survive.

Then, I figured it was time to move onto something more practical than a bookshop and nearly let my dream die.

Just this semester, during my class on marketing, I did one of my projects on Barnes & Noble and remembered how much I liked the idea of starting up a bookstore. So I’ve switched from editing, though I still enjoy it, back to planning on running a bookstore of my own. I spent way more time on one assignment than was probably necessary, researching and writing a detailed marketing plan. While I probably could have saved more time and submitted a less-detailed assignment, I wanted to know what I was getting into.

I didn’t just complete the assignment for the sake of doing the assignment. I did it for my future business endeavors. During my research, I even came across an article that explained how independent bookstores in the United States aren’t actually dying out: “How Independent Bookstores Have Thrived in Spite of Amazon.com.”

That’s when I came to realize I can do this. I can start up my own bookstore.

This past year has been quite busy! While I haven’t had nearly as much time to read lately, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Now that I only have one class left, and I’m done with one of my jobs, I can get back to reading and writing regularly.

If you happen to find yourself confronted by a dream that seems impossible or implausible in the world today, may I just encourage you with the lyrics from one of my favorite songs:

Every night I lie in bed

The brightest colors fill my head.

A million dreams are keeping me awake.

I think of what the world could be

A vision of the one I see.

A million dreams is all it’s gonna take.

A million dreams for the world we're gonna make.

(“A Million Dreams,” The Greatest Showman)

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Let’s chat! What about you? What’s your dream? *cue music from Tangled* What have you done to pursue it?

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Similar posts: 4 Ways to Find Time to Write; Anxiety, Depression, and Literature: Studying Abroad in England; and Editor vs. Anxiety

Anxiety, Depression, and Literature: Studying Abroad in England

It was another sunny morning in Italy. The sky was blue, and the day was full of potential. Or rather really annoying questions from people attempting small talk. Here is a legitimate conversation I had right after church:

“So, how’s the dissertation going?”

I looked the guy dead in the eyes. “I want to set it on fire.”

“So, it’s going well.”

Try small talk, and I’ll give crazy answers like this. I’ve even come up with sassy answers to what I plan on doing after graduation: join the circus as a unicyclist/trapeze artist, get married on the moon, and conquer the world. On second thought, I may just throw my graduation cap instead. (Do graduate students get the same caps?)

Last September, my dad and I loaded up his car with my stuff and drove all the way from Italy to England. Yes, that’s right. My life is pretty crazy. Last March I got accepted to the University of Nottingham to study for an MA in English Literature. I like books so much, I decided to go beyond the four-year degree and tackle an accelerated one-year program in a foreign country.

After all the stress of filling out all the paperwork to get my visa (which every international student hates, by the way), my dad helped me move into my flat in England. My room was perfectly located right across the street from Lidl and not even a block from Jubilee Campus where I’d go for plenty of walks. I lived all the way on the top floor (yay, exercise!) with a great view of the street where I could people and bird watch.

Wearing my borrowed fencing kit.

The pen may be mightier than the
sword, but beware the sword!

I bought a bike, which I used to go to classes (usually beating the campus bus by five minutes) and explore the city and the parks. I especially enjoyed going for walks along the lakes and bike rides along the canal and the River Trent. I even joined the fencing society at school because I always wanted to learn how to sword fight.

I was super excited to attend a university in England, even though I knew it would be difficult. But I was also scared. I had so many questions. What would the classes be like? How hard is the grading system? What if I failed?

In all, the classes weren’t that different from my undergraduate back in the States, except they were two hours long and only once a week. In the end, my schedule was pretty empty. I spent most of my time cramming in as much reading as I could, planning my reading schedule, and panicking because I thought I wasn’t reading enough. It took me a while to realize that all the external reading not assigned every week was recommended not required, but I still tried to read as much as possible.

So far, I haven’t failed. I haven’t gotten spectacular grades, but English professors grade a LOT harder than the Americans. They still use a one-hundred-point system, but a 50 is a pass, 60 a merit, and 70 a distinction. Woah, what? So far, I’ve done alright. I’m still waiting on results for my dissertation, my final project which is the equivalent of a master’s thesis in the States.

I also attended a Vineyard church where I joined a small group. Aside from my classes where I spoke to practically nobody, I saw people twice a week: once at church on Sundays and once during small group on Thursdays. Even for an introvert, it was rough not talking to people on a daily basis. I was lonely, and I missed the community I had back at Evangel University where I could just wander down the hall and chat with the girls on my floor.

I didn’t know any of my classmates. How do you start a conversation with somebody during class? After class? Before? And what on earth do you talk about?

I had a couple of friends in my small group, but most of them were busy with their own schedules—work and school and such. I felt like I could be myself around them, but I didn’t get to know anybody very well.  

In England, I felt like I had nobody.

And it wasn’t all from a complete lack of trying. It may have been cultural. It may have been that particular year in my life because I was so focused on coursework. It may have been any number of things.

Halfway through my second semester, I overstrained my Achilles tendon while fencing, and suddenly found I couldn’t walk without pain. Thankfully, I could still bike, but I stopped taking walks, which I did for study breaks. Instead I spent most of my time in my room reading. And reading. And reading. Around the same, a couple of my friends stopped coming to small group.

I never felt so alone.

On a weekly basis, I broke down in my room crying. The smallest things would set me off—a conversation with a professor, crossing the street at the wrong time, a small, insignificant thought, a books I read. I started calling my parents nearly on a daily basis, feeling broken. Weak.  

I hated myself for it.

I prayed a lot, but I didn’t feel like God was speaking to me. Last year, he told me I’d go to grad school, and I did. This year, I had no work. No direction. People kept asking me what I planned to do after graduation when I didn’t know.

The only passage of Scripture that really spoke to me was II Corinthians 8-12, “Three times I [Paul] pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Like Paul, I was weak, am still weak. I begged God to take away the pain, the loneliness, the insecurity. He gave me this verse instead. I’m still learning its implications.

After my ankle healed and I came home for Easter Break, I was finally able to relax around my family a bit. I also had my first appointment with a psychologist, where we talked about my struggles, anxiety and depression. I wanted to do everything and nothing for fear that it would all go wrong. What a combination.

After speaking with a psychologist and my family, I went back to England to finish up my essays and start my dissertation. Gradually, my mood began to improve. I cried less. I started singing in my flat again, probably driving my flat mates crazy. I found listening to K-Love helpful, particularly Matthew West’s “Grace Wins”:

I wanted to travel places and do things with my life. I even got to hang out with some of my friends from small group more often, which only made it harder to say goodbye when I came home for the summer.

Now that I’ve turned in my dissertation (no, I didn’t actually set it on fire), I still don’t have much direction in my life. In July, my friend Faith visited for a month, but now that she’s gone, I’m lonely once again. But at least I have my family.

I’m not the same person who went to Nottingham a year ago. I’m a little older, a little more experienced, a little more broken. But that’s okay. 

When I say I just want to be normal, I don’t mean I want to be like everybody else. I just want to be myself. Whoever that is now, I’m not sure. But I’m still finding out.

Life is a discovery process.

One of the many view of the weather from my flat,

featuring one of the local crows, who I named Fidget and Speck.

I could have had it worse, and I still have bad days when I just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling wanting to do nothing. But those days are few and far between. Every day, I’m discovering how to appreciate the sunshine and the rain, the melancholy songs and the joyful ones, the tragic stories and the happy endings, the good days and the bad days.

And that’s okay too, because that’s life.

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Similar Posts: Do what YOU Enjoy and 7 Steps to Keep Writing When You Feel Like Giving Up

Let’s chat. How do you deal with bad days and insecurities? Were there ever days when you felt like giving up? What inspired you to keep going?

Do What YOU Enjoy

When I was a kid, I used to daydream about how soon I’d be out of school. If the average American graduated high school at 18 then spent four years at college, then I would be free from school by 22. But life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan. As my dad would always say, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans for the future.”

As I neared the end of my senior year in college, I said I’d never go to grad school. I’d heard too many horror stories of people who went to grad school only to give up reading because they never wanted to touch another book again or others who had grad school completely kill their creativity. What kind of torture could possibly make anybody stop reading and writing? How could I survive? Then there was the workload. I cried after a grad student came into our senior seminar class to talk to us about what it was like to study English Literature at a master’s level.

That’s when I made up my mind I’d NEVER go to grad school. Long story short, God had other plans, and now I’m studying English Literature at the university of my choice. During my first semester, I decided I’d be creative anyway, despite what everybody else said. So what if other people found postgraduate studies to have killed their creativity? That didn’t mean it had to kill mine.

So it was that I’d spend most of the week reading for classes, stressing out on a weekly basis, and editing my novel as study breaks. That’s right. My study breaks. Yeah, sure, I’d still pick up a book every now and then, though I’d try to limit it to the weekends because I tended to get sucked into the novels and neglect my coursework until I got to the end of the book. That only lasted a semester though. Last spring, for every book I read for school, I read two for fun.

Double rainbow during one of my many bike rides.

If anything, I’d say that studying at a postgraduate level has made me more creative. Every other week, I jot down a poem, which I didn’t use to do. Whenever I get a rejection letter from a literary agent, I just send out another query. And I set aside every Sunday to ignore my school completely and just write. Or read. Or go for bike rides to my local park.

Aside from all the stuff I’ve been learning in my classes, I’ve learned that my circumstances don’t have to determine what I enjoy. Just because my coursework can get pretty overwhelming doesn’t mean I should give up doing what I enjoy. No two people are alike, so why should I become less creative just because somebody else was? Life is too short to stop doing the things I’m passionate about just because I struggle with my day job as a full time student.

So if you enjoy writing or painting or whatever, go for it! Make your passions a priority. And don’t let other people determine what you can and cannot do.

While I may not have all the time in the world to write, I look forward to the day when I can write more often. Perhaps even on a daily basis. And I still look forward to graduation. As for the possibility of my studying at a doctorate level—well—it would take a miracle. But my mom always used to say God has a great sense of humor…

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What are you passionate about? Were there ever times when your studies/work conflicted with your passions?