WRITING ADVICE: Writing with LATENT PASSION

My biggest complaint about articles in THE WRITER and WRITERS DIGEST is that they always have seven thousand four hundred and sixty-nine points to follow. If you take the ten or twelve articles, multiply by 7469 you end up with like, a gazillion points to follow to become a better writer. I can only handle one idea at a time.

So I've invented a new style (new to me at least). ANNOUNCING -- FLASHICLES (FLASH artICLES, derived from flash fiction).


This is the first in a series of flashicles about writing that will alternate with POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAYS about SF and Christianity. Warning: these might possibly irritate you, too...

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Never write what you know.
Only write what you are passionate about.

I use the word "passionate" here deliberately. (http://www.entymonline.com/index.php?search=passion&searchmode=none) If you want to write articles that sell; that people will print out or tape to their workspace wall, then you obviously have to have something to say. But most important is that your article has to have suffering behind it. The reader doesn't want to know anything about you at all (except in the little sentence at the end). Your suffering; your passion has to be latent. It needs to skulk and slink unseen in every sentence.

I've carefully studied the twelve articles I've had published and looked at the countless others that have been rejected. The ones that saw the light of day simmered and boiled with latent passion. Jesus was passionate and look how long we've remembered Him!