That most excellent site for writers and readers, Goodreads, has a section that offers the opportunity to ask questions of the writers. One question I chose to answer: What advice would I give to an aspiring author?
I said, Write. Every. Day.
It all counts,
whether it’s a blog post, a long email to a friend, an imaginative shopping
list, a short story, a poem, or a novel. Exercise your creative muscles for as
long as you can, as often as you can. Asa Baber, the late, great Playboy
columnist was the first writing teacher to tell me that creative muscles
atrophy from lack of usage the same as all the others. I have found that to be
true a hundred times.
Even if all
you're doing is sketching out scenes in your notebook, play with ideas. Write
character descriptions on bus, train or plane rides or during your break at
work. Take notes on locations every time you go somewhere new. Watch for
interesting things, or listen to intriguing conversations that take place in
your vicinity and write them down. Don't be afraid to reconstruct the ordinary
stuff that occurs every day. Have a fight with your boss? Do as my novelist
friend Linda Mickey did. Kill him . . .on paper. Her furious imaginings became
the plot for her first book, Greased Wheels. By the way, in every state, murder
on the page is considered an acceptable alternative to punching someone's
lights out. Or worse.
But let me add a
caution. Writers write. They don't spin out their plot ideas at cocktail
parties. In my humble opinion, talking about what you plan to write is the best
way to suck all the energy from the idea and/or lose it to someone who may be
suffering from writer's block. The only time to share your work is when it's
reached written form and you're asking for an opinion from your significant
other or a group of your fellows in a writing workshop or class.
That reminds me:
by "writing," I don't mean endless polishing and re-polishing the
opening page of your novel. A new writer in one of my first workshops did that
and it drove the rest of us bonkers. The sad thing was...she had a wonderful,
lyrical way with words. She just couldn't bring herself to move forward. I've
always believed the saying, "You can't steal second if you insist on
clinging to first" and it applies to writing just as it does to life. Even
if you think what you've written is complete cow manure, push ahead. Finish your
manuscript. THEN go back and edit the darn thing. Or throw it in a drawer to
re-visit in a month. Given a little distance, you may discover it's not nearly as
bad as you thought it was.
Here are two
last points One comes from my Hard Earned Lessons file. Once your novel is
finished, unless you've paid for a critique session, don't go to a Bigtime
Writers Conference and ask your Favorite Author of All Time to read your work
and provide feedback. First of all, she likely has her own manuscript to
finish. Second, many publishing houses advise their authors NOT to accept
reading requests from writers they don't know to avoid potential allegations of
plagiarism. My final point . . . finish
your manuscript AND have it professionally edited (no, your nephew the English
teacher doesn't qualify as a pro in this case...you want to be published, not
graded, right?) before you start looking for an agent. The "why"
comes from an agent who shall remain anonymous because she was drunker than a
skunk in the bar of a New York hotel when she spoke this line, which I quote
exactly: "I ‘spect to shee shit from these firsht time assh-holes and, you
know what? You know what? They seldom dishappoint me."
So don't dishappoint. Write until you can write no more
every chance you get.
No comments:
Post a Comment