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First, a refresher.

I've been pontificating about earnest, passionate, but clueless unpublished writers with stars in their eyes and the mistaken idea that writing is a craft and not a business. I hate bursting bubbles. I really do. But I've had enough of my own burst over the years and have the scars to prove it. I know how d--- hard this business is. And how, when the words flow and characters pound me in excitement because I've 'got' them, there's nothing better.

Back to my poor innocent and naïve students.

Every week I'd receive a packet filled with assignments. The majority of the time, I parked my emotions at the door and put on my teacher hat because I knew I'd be focusing on the mechanics. I'd write notes about tense, dialogue punctuation, plot, characterization, scenes, time-frames. Those elements and more are vital and pointing them out was my job. In today's world, editors don't have the time or inclination to teach those elements. But what I kept looking for and seldom found was the spark, the character who leaped off the page and grabbed me around the neck, words that sang, EMOTION. That, unfortunately, was what was lacking and what, I suspect is lacking in much of what editors see. Fiction is heart and that can't be taught.

By the time I've finished writing a book, there's darn little left of me. I'm reamed out, gutted. I've thrown every emotion I have at the page and exposed my every nerve. I've bled and cried, raged and laughed, had mind-blowing sex and in essence confessed what it felt like to grow up without a father and a mother who spent a year in a mental hospital.

That's what I kept looking for from my students. HEART. SOUL. Their words needed to come from someplace deep, nothing left behind, nothing held back.
Instead, for the most part, I read paint-by-number and not well-painted at that.
My words of wisdom for my students now that I don't have to be politically correct and aren't getting a paycheck off their efforts: BLEED. And if you're afraid to do that or don't know how, this isn't the gig for you.

And if my words happen to reach a certain attorney with an awesome gift of bringing characters and drama to life, why the hell did you quit? The same goes for the young prison inmate. And the woman who'd lost her daughter to cancer.