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WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®

Helping writers become bestselling authors

Help Us Celebrate The Incredible Strength of Writers (And A New Book!)

by

The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Emotional Trauma is out in the world!

Full disclosure: this book was not easy to write. Emotional wounds are not fictional–they create heartache in the real world, too. Life, as we are all acutely aware, can be a painful teacher.

But for us to bring truth to the page we must be willing to explore all aspects of the human experience, including the psychological trauma of the past. Writers are in a unique position in that they can take these negative life lessons and use them to build authentic characters with real motivations.

We want strong, realistic characters who remind readers of themselves so they see their own life journey within the mirror of the story. If we dig deep enough, we can accomplish this.

The Writer’s Journey

But what of us writers? None of us are strangers to struggle. In fact we share one: battling the same hurdles, challenges, and sacrifices attached to a career in writing.

This is NOT an easy path to follow. Writer’s doubt is a constant companion. It takes passion–and perseverance–to keep going.

And guess what? All of you are doing it!  Because #writerspersevere

For this release, we’re inviting writers to blog about some of the obstacles they have overcome on the writing road. Check out the list at the end of this post and read a few of these stories. Let’s draw inspiration from the incredible strength of other writers. If you like, join in! Share your own story if you like, and inspire others!

 

In addition to this, we’re running a giveaway! What can you win? Well, that’s up to you, because the more you share any of the images here, along with the #writerspersevere hashtag, the MORE PRIZES we will add to the prize vault.

Here’s what a FULLY UNLOCKED vault looks like:

(Pretty epic, right?)

Winning something on this list could give you a BIG BOOST toward your next writing goal or milestone! More information on each of these prizes can be found HERE.

ENTERING THE GIVEAWAY

18 years or older? Meet the legal requirements here? BOOM, just fill out

 THIS FORM.

Giveaway now closed–good luck! Watch your inbox. 🙂 

Then . . .

1) share this post (or one that links to this post) where appropriate.

2) add an image from the post & the hashtag #writerspersevere

We’ll count the hashtags. The more you share, the more prizes we’ll unlock!

Prizes (the final tally to be determined by Becca and me) will be drawn MIDNIGHT EST Oct 27th, and winners will be notified Oct 28th.  You have 48 hours to claim your prize, or we’ll redraw, so watch your email box! Full rules here. Prize descriptions here.

One more thing.

Each year, Becca and I donate some of our royalties to a special charity. Because our book is centered on emotionally wounding events, we’ve chosen the American Association for Suicide Prevention. Thank you for supporting us, so we in turn can pay it forward and help others.

Good luck!

#writerspersevere

To see currently unlocked prizes, visit THIS PAGE.

To read stories of inspiration and strength, follow the links below…or join in and share your own experience!

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Carrie Nichols says

    With each new story I struggle with fears/flaws/conflict. I’m a character-driven writer and while I know my characters, having to explain (as in writing a synopsis or filling out a project work sheet) the why of my characters stops me cold. My agent wants clear cause and effect not “Because I said so?”

    My paper copy of The Emotional Wound Thesaurus arrived today and I took a look at Appendix A: Wound Flowchart and things started to click into place!!!! Thank you so much! I’m sure I will still struggle with these elements since they’re my weakness but I *know* this is going to help. I’m sure it will be something I refer to each time I plan out a story.

    Thank you so much!!!

    • ANGELA ACKERMAN says

      It does! I loved reading your story–your first book is on a topic I have had a lot of dealing with as a mom, and so your story really touched me. I am glad you found your way to books!

  6. Sabine Kristensen-Didur says

    Congrats on the new book. I live in Canada and Amazon is not selling it yet, so I might have to wait. I have the 5 books and starting to write my first novel. Thank you for your amazing guidance and information.
    #writerspersevere

  7. ANGELA ACKERMAN says

    I know I am asking others to share their own stories of perseverance, so I thought I’d share one of my own. Did you know I almost quit? I did. It was painful to work so hard, hone my craft, get an agent, struggle with the agent, leave the agent, get another agent (I mean, two agents–there must be something right with my writing, right?) and then go through heartbreak after heartbreak of close calls and no’s. A common story for many of us, I think.

    Some of you might think, “But Angela, you had a platform.” or “Angela, you had the Thesaurus books.” That came after. Back then Becca and I were still building our presence online at The Bookshelf Muse, and nowhere ready to publish the Emotion Thesaurus.

    At home, my husband was starting to suggest I might hang it up, try something else. I was a SAHM, and I knew he wanted me to start bringing in some money seeing as the kids were a bit older and in school full time. And honestly I was starting to wonder myself…had I wasted the last 8 years on a pipe dream? Maybe it was time to find something else I could be successful at, before my youth was gone completely.

    I went for a walk. I remember sitting on a rock down by the Bow river, and just thinking it all through. Keep going, or move on? I felt like no one had faith in me, including myself. And I think this is when it hit me–if I couldn’t believe in myself, how could I expect my husband to? I knew the ideas in my head were unique. The stories were there. Solid, different. I thought about how my two boys, who hated reading, would beg me to narrate the stories in my head to them each night. I had something to offer, if I could just get it onto the page properly. If I quit now, I would always regret it. So I decided I was in, not out.

    I redoubled my effort into learning writing craft. I learned alongside Becca, and I passed this on through blogging. And I guess I realized maybe I had a bit of talent there as well, so Becca and I took the plunge and started writing craft books. The rest is sort of history.

    Imagine for a minute if I had quit. What if I didn’t find the courage to keep going? What if I had lost my stubbornness? What if i was now doing something else completely, and writing was just a memory of the past? No thesaurus books. Not a one.

    Don’t give up. Do whatever it takes. Identify your weak areas and strengthen them. Think creatively, and take risks. Don’t be scared. This is how we live life to the fullest and never regret our choices because we know we had the courage to be all-in.

    I still have fiction to write. And I will. And you will, too. 🙂 Because #writerspersevere

    • Allison Collins says

      Thank you for sharing your story, Angela! Thank God you persevered – we wouldn’t have these fantastic, game-changing resources today. I, for one, and I know there are thousands of other authors, am grateful for you and Becca.

      • ANGELA ACKERMAN says

        It’s funny–we don’t always expect life’s twists and turns, but this is what keeps the journey interesting. I never imagined doing something like this, writing books that (holy cow!) other people use to steer their own storytelling, but it is so rewarding and I love helping people, so I am so glad this happened. I can’t imagine a reality now where I only ever pursued fiction, not both!

    • Patricia (Trish) Takahashi says

      Thank you for sharing your story Angela. I’ve had a similar experience with my husband and, though I retired from full-time teaching to write full time, I finally succumbed to the pressure I perceived (perceived in that if I stand up to him he is a pushover!) and I went back to casual relief teaching, which sounds good but in reality is very disruptive to any plans to write every day. I never know when I will be working or not working as schools call me day to day. Sometimes I get a text the night before, sometimes a phone call at 6am. Some weeks I work every day and some weeks one day or none. The worst thing about it is that I am doing it purely for the money and that is exhausting.

      I now feel inspired to go all out to finish the books I am writing and also to apply myself seriously to marketing a series of illustrated readers for beginning students of Japanese that I have written and published and that I know are good.

      Thank you for your inspiration. I love your thesauruses and will be buying your Emotional Wound Thesaurus as soon as I finish typing this. And thank you for providing this forum for people to share their stories.
      #writerspersevere

      • ANGELA ACKERMAN says

        I am so glad you feel inspired. I think when we dream, we live. It sounds corny maybe, but honestly when you peel the layers away, isn’t it true? Yes we need incomes, we need to pay bills and we always want to be doing this, but we need to dream, and take steps toward making that dream a reality. Keep going and don’t lose sight of what you were born to do. 🙂 It will happen! Happy writing, Patricia!

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