It being the new year — and the first year of a new decade — I went poking around the web and noticed a bunch of websites for people’s New Year’s Resolutions. A little further investigation revealed that “write a book” is, in some form or another, on an awful lot of people’s lists (it was one of the 20 most popular goals on one web site I found).
Speaking as someone for whom “write a book” is more of a necessity than anything else, I have to wonder whether any of those people really know what they’re getting into. In my experience, most people don’t actually want to write a book; what they want is to have written a book (preferably without spending much in the way of time or effort). Even the ones who really do want to write a book are probably underestimating just how long it’s going to take and how sick of it they’re going to get before they finish.
Be that as it may, a lot of folks are apparently going to take a crack at writing a book this year. I have not been asked for my advice on this, but I’m going to give it anyway. (What can I say? It’s what I do.)
The first piece of advice is: Take each and every piece of writing advice you get from anybody with a large boulder of salt. This is especially true of those things that “everybody knows” you have to do to write, write well, get published, etc.
Because most of them aren’t true for everyone…and they are extremely likely to be untrue for you.
For instance, the first thing nearly everybody looks for when they want to sit down and write a book is an idea. OK, yes, you do need an idea or two at some point in the process, and it’s not an unreasonable place to begin. But not every writer starts with an idea, except in the broadest sense. Some start with a place they want to write about, or a character, or a story they want to tell, or a theme, or even a purpose like “I want to write a book that will inspire people!” Other people start by methodically trying to acquire the skills they are going to need in order to write — they take a typing class, or some creative writing classes, or they do a practice journal, or read mountains of how-to-write books.
All these things work…for somebody. All these things also don’t work…for other somebodies. The real trick is to figure out what works for you.
And while a certain amount of thought and introspection up front do seem to help, ultimately the only way I know of to figure this out is to try different things and see what works. It does make sense to start by trying the more commonly useful methods first, like outlining or keeping an ideas journal or doing daily practice writing.
Some things will work for you from the get-go. Some things will work for a while, then stop, and when they do, it’s OK to abandon them. (I kept an ideas file for about fifteen years, full of notes, brief descriptions, pictures or poetry that make my backbrain go ping, and a bunch of other stuff. I quit keeping it when I realized I hadn’t looked at it for over five years.) Some things will work for you, but not the way you think they’re supposed to. (I always outline. Always. And then I don’t follow the outline. Always. I have to have it in order to see where I’m not going. Or something.) Some things won’t work at all. (I’ve tried doing practice writing, and I just can’t stick to it. My “practice writing” is my actual pages for the day.)
The most important thing, though, is to figure out how you write — whether you’re a page-a-day-at-nine-a.m. slogger, or a burst writer who can crank out ten thousand words in one marathon session at the computer but then has to sit around doing nothing for a week or two in order to recharge, or the sort who sort of grazes constantly, producing a paragraph here and a sentence there all through the day or week, feeling as if you aren’t getting anything done until you get to Friday and notice that you have written an entire chapter when you “weren’t working.”
I think it’s kinda’ funny, because I never make New Year’s Resolutions and this year I decided to make one. And yes. I’m not just planning on writing a book, I want to write several. (Well, just the rough first drafts.) And I actually enjoy this, somehow.
But I definitely agree with you. Everyone writes differently. Such great advice! Thanks 🙂 Very encouraging.
That’s what makes writing so interesting, challenging and difficult to teach – there’s no one way to do it, ever.
I’m the sort that has to book time to write every day or I get out of the habit and it gets really hard to get back into the swing of it (having just taken three weeks off of writing for a trip back to family in Canada).
Two of my New Year’s irresolutions – my own take on that custom, tailored to the fact that diletantte whim motivates me better than heroic will – feature writing this year. One involves the application of bum to seat, and the other is a shortlist of things that I will positively not get sucked into writing this time around. There is nothing about finishing any of the many yarns I would like to over the next twelvemonth, since this would serve no purpose other than to jinx the victim. Deadlines I can do, but only when they’re real ones.
As to the indefinite ‘write a book’ aspiration in general, I don’t understand that so well. It strikes me as kind of like an aspiration to ‘find a lover’ – there are an awful lot of tacit assumptions that have to lie behind it, if it’s to be anything other than completely crazy. Most hopeless romantics at least know about those, when they stop to think about ’em. I wonder how many of those bitten by the Writer-Romance bug could say as much?
My own first bite came when I was about eight. I’d read Lord of the Rings twice, and I wasn’t ready to read it again, and I very badly wanted to write something just as good but different. With more dragons and monsters. I managed everything but the ‘good’ bit, and the habit was so addictive that I never did get out of it.
Thank you for this post! I’ve been following your blog for probably a year but have never commented. All your entries have been so helpful and supportive and entertaining; I’ve saved several of them to a folder on my computer for reference and encouragement! I spend my time balancing several creative projects, three of which are books of various sorts (one prose, two graphic novels), and it’s great to be able to read your blog and get smart advice on writing. I especially appreciate what you say in this post — take all advice with tons of salt — because that’s something I had to realize for myself before I could even *start* writing. I used to be in academia, so I brought a habit of diligent note-taking and processing to my writing… and so I’d apply myself to each new piece of writing advice as if it were a school project, and then get frustrated because I felt like I was writing in someone else’s mold. Thankfully I’m mostly over that now, but I still have to tell myself constantly: “You don’t have to do things the way anyone else does. When you succeed, it will be in your own way.” I like that you send this same message in many of your posts; it gives me hope that I’m onto something! 🙂
New Year’s Resolution: floss. the resolution pertaining to writing – take the almost-finished draft I have (thank you NaNoWriMo!), finish it, and edit it to a submittable level of finish. If I don’t I have to tell my stupid-faced manager at work I love him as much as he loves his own reflection.
I love all you said! 🙂
Really, I never had a lack of ideas – they just didn’t go anywhere. When I tried to write a “proper” book – with, you know, some sort of plot, I started off merrily enough, wrote a few chapters and – got stuck. And it’s not that I lacked imagination – I just never seemed to be able to drum up any interest in a plot. And had I had no imagination, surely I read so much that I could find a plot to pinch – uh, sorry, be inspired by – but no. I just didn’t care. (This is probably connected to my utter lack of ambition, or interest in “doing things”.) So at last I came to the realisation – plot wasn’t for me. I wasn’t interested in the book “going anywhere” in particular. So, my “book” is more like a collection of short stories or sketches – with a few chapters that may have a semblance of following some story-line (no, not really 🙂 ) Held together by a very vaguely defined time and place (which exists – also in a very vague form – in my imagination) and a – hopefully – much less vague central character. (At any rate, she’s very real to me – she really lives for me. As do the other characters, actually.)
Anyway, I generally think that I don’t really write much better than I did when I was – say – 13 (being 38 now, this is probably a really bad admmission to make about myself! 🙂 ) – what I am better at is knowing what I am good at and not.
Or, what works for me and not.
So, if I actually did manage to go back to writing my book, and finished it – I’m very well aware that it will probably interest very few people. But if I did it any other way, it wouldn’t even interest me.
Gray – I like “New Years irresolutions”!
Lisa – Welcome aboard! “There is no One True Way” has been my mantra for years, when I talk about writing. A lot of people seem to need to hear it.
accio_aqualung – Revising is a very necessary skill for a writer, as long as one doesn’t get too carried away!
LRK – You might be focusing on “action plots” when you are more in tune with the emotional or intellectual story level, or you might be more of a mood-and-atmosphere writer (which is, unfortunately for you, out of fashion in publishing right now). Or you may be a short-story writer at heart. Of course, if you like, you can always swipe a plot from Shakespeare – he’s been dead 400 years, so no lawsuits!
… swipe a plot from Shakespeare …
Not only has he been dead 400 years, but he swiped most of his plots from earlier writers, so he could hardly complain even if he were alive!
HA! I learned my lesson on that … my NaNo novel is set up and populated in a completely different way, so it shouldn’t take *too* long …
I write incredibly slowly, but once I get in the swing of things, it really starts going somewhere. It’s just that I don’t always remember to write…unfortunatly. I am renewing my resolve! 🙂
I’ve actually tried ALL of the ideas mentioned here. Also a bunch of ideas not mentioned. *sigh* One of these days I’m gonna give up being a writer and its gonna stick!
Esther – While hope springs eternal, remember that nothing is ever likely to actually make writing easy. Persistence is the only thing that really gets the job done in the long run.