Customer Reviews

The Writer Behind the Words: Steps to Success in the Writing Life

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Award-winning author Dara Girard presents The Writer Behind the Words: Steps to Success in the Writing Life, a handy guide for aspiring and professional writers alike to achieving success and an honest living in the field. Chapters cover the seven traits of successful writers; how to make one's writing output more prolific; dealing with doubt, depression, and writer's block; forming a sensible strategy for success; and much more. A highly motivational resource for developing a writer's work ethic.

Anyone who has considered writing for a living, as opposed to simply writing as a hobby or pastime, will benefit from Dara Girard's new book. An award-winning romance author and novelist, Girard fills several dozen chapters of this book with short, readable excerpts about life as a professional writer.

From overcoming rejection to recovering from bad reviews, readers learn that many successful authors have faced significant obstacles along their pathway to publishing. Such obstacles, Girard argues, are entirely normal and to be expected by all, including the so-called rich and famous. Beginning writers should definitely expect rejection and should not be surprised or overwhelmed when their writing receives a negative review.

Write - whether inspired or not - says Girard. Don't sit around moodily, waiting for a muse that may be delayed or may never arrive. Sit down and get to writing. Creative or not, the words will come. Get them on screen or on paper: keep writing.

Unpublished writers will learn a lot from this book, despite its relatively few pages. Published writers will find the encouragement they need to keep moving forward. All working writers will relate to the stories, ideas, and concepts that Girard shares.

In less than 120 pages of actual text, the author covers a wide range of topics that merit consideration by anyone considering a career in words. Lending credibility to her personal perspective, the author cites experiences of major contemporary authors such as Stephen King, showing the reader how even the famous have survived setbacks en route to publication, financial success, and a wide readership.

NOTE: Together with her husband, this reviewer has written numerous articles and eight books.

Armchair Interviews says: Every author was once a first-time author--so keep writing!

I often gauge writing by the quality of relaxation it inspires in me. I respect writers who respect me: those who allow me to use my energy to reflect on their message. I merely bear with those who force me to make it through needlessly complex language or twisty, dark alleys to get at their meaning. Yes, I learn from these writers too, but I wish all the while they'd learn that good writers are, above all, courteous. Good writers consider a reader's time as important as their own. They don't say, in effect, "I'm too brilliant, and too busy, to untangle my thinking so that you don't have to." I want my reading to challenge my intellect, not to tax my patience in de-coding what needn't be in code.

Girard is a courteous writer, and in this little labor of love, she freely shares advice on how you may honor your reader as she does.

It's not easy to write simply. Absorb Girard's lessons, relax with her exemplary prose, and you'll be well on your way to her meeting foremost criterion, which is the gold standard in any pursuit: making it look easy. She assures us it's not easy, but she assures us we can.

Dara Girard tells it like it is -- the most valuable information for a novice who is serious about a writing career. For most beginners, having heard only fictional accounts of a writer's life (as depicted in the movies) do not expect to work hard enough or long enough to make it.

Unprepared for the long haul, not knowing what to expect, unaware that rejection is the name of the game... they only dream of being an author. Girard's book will open their eyes, and prepare those who seriously want to write (rather than to have written) while discouraging the fairy tale dreamers.

In this short book covering clearly, and in detail, the most imortant information an aspiring author needs to know, Girard makes a great contributon-- not how to write, but how to becme a writer.

There are many good books on how to write, but this is the best one I've seen on how to become a writer.

Note: This reviewer is internationally published in both prose and poetry, and author of THE WRITING WORLD, Living The Literary Life.

Dara Girard's The Writer Behind the Words: Steps to Success in the Writing Life is aimed at folks who are having trouble gaining entry into the writing life. It's aimed at people who are angry or depressed, who feel that they'll never make it because they aren't good enough, or editors are stupid and can't recognize their genius, or the market doesn't appreciate what they have to offer. It isn't meant for folks who are cruising along just fine on their own.

For that intended audience it has a wealth of information, suggestions, tips, and advice. Advice is offered in straightforward, relatively brief chapters and sections, so you can easily find what you need and get to the heart of the matter, whether that matter is handling bad reviews of your work or learning not to compare yourself to other writers. That advice comes in a wonderful blend of the uplifting and spiritual, and the blunt and concrete. I often find that books lean a little too hard toward one end or the other, and I enjoyed Ms. Girard's balance of the two.

Added to that is the fact that there are wonderful quotes and delightful turns of phrase sprinkled throughout; I laughed several times when reading this, and had to read a few bits out loud to my husband because they tickled me.

If you aren't sure what it means to you to be a writer, if you get discouraged after a single rejection letter, if your envy of other writers keeps you from making your own progress, then this book is a great kick in the pants. It'll warm the parts of you that need warming, encourage the parts that need encouraging, and yet still tell you the hard truths you need to hear--as well as what to do with them.

There are shelves of good books about how to become a better writer; this book isn't one of them. Disappointed and discouraged? Good--In that case, The Writer Behind the Words by Dara Girard can be just the book you are looking for.

Girard won't tell you how to write a perfect query letter or which editors to query, but she will tell you how to identify the obstacles in your writing career and suggest ways to overcome them.

Drawing on her personal experience, disappointments, discouragements, and doubts in her writing career, Gerard has written an honest, straightforward, humorous book to help beginning writers survive the downfalls of the publishing world.

Don't look for sugarcoated words with all the keys to success and all the right answers to all your writing needs. Girard didn't sugarcoat anything. In fact, her book is loaded with scenarios gone wrong that could give you reason to put your pen down and quit writing. But following those downward spirals are plenty of suggestions and encouragement to keep writing and working on your craft.

Truth is, Girard hits on many of the pitfalls of a writing career. She tells you how to spot bad editors and agents and tells writers they can be their own dream killers by making excuses for not writing. There are even tips on how to tackle your own excuses.

The Writer Behind the Words is divided into three parts which explains how beginning writers are looking for the secrets and steps to publication. Rather than tell you what success is, Girard tells you to "define success for yourself" and explains the differences between goals and missions. She reveals the reality of the six hard truths of publishing and the seven traits of successful writers. Girard instructs you on how to overcome disappointment, discouragement, doubt and depression. Girard explains how rejections influence your writing career and offers tips on how to recover from rejection and move forward.

In The Writer Behind the Words Girard put her heart, soul, and her disappointments and discouragements into words that could help beginning writers see the disappointments they may face before they find out the hard way as Girard did.

In the preface to her book Girard says she "wrote this book as a gift to other writers who are discouraged, feel hopeless or useless in a world that can make us--the artist--feel insignificant and invisible. ...Isolation is deadly to the spirit, yet, as a writer, a necessary requirement at times. So let this little book be a friend that whispers to you: "You are important and your words are needed."

This reviewer would recommend The Writer Behind the Words to beginning writers. They could benefit from Girard's experience and find the encouragement and tips they need to overcome the pitfalls in their own writing career.