J.R. Mathis's Blog
June 18, 2020
Things I Learned Writing My Novel #2--Writing is a skill that needs to be learned.
Would you trust your child to a surgeon who said, "I have no formal training as a doctor, but my mother told me I was special and could do anything I wanted to, so I got a scalpel and a set of scrubs and started walking around this hospital. Now, what seems to be the problem?"
If the answer is anything other than no, we need to talk.
Too many people start the writing journey thinking all they have to do is sit down, write, and publish whatever they produce. Once they've done that, the readers will flock to their masterpiece and declare them the next [fill in their favorite author]. There is a term for these writers: unpublished. Unless they self-publish; then its unread.
You've never heard of these writers because their work is usually crap. It's unedited, unprofessional, and unreadable. For the most part, thankfully, it inhabits the darker corners of Amazon that feature such wonderful genres as dinosaur erotica (yes, that is a real thing, you can look it up...on second thought, don't). Even when they publish in more traditional genres their work is just bad and does not get a readership beyond their mother and maybe their friends.
This is not to discourage anyone from writing. If you think you have a story to tell then by all means start writing. Writing at the very least can be a good hobby that can give you hours of enjoyment. But if you think you might want to publish the masterpiece bubbling in your brain, then you need to approach writing the way you've approached any other skill you wanted to master--with study, hard work, and a large dose of humility.
"But James, writing is art. It relies on inspiration, not skill."
Writing is art, like painting or composing a symphony. But the great artists in history spent years perfecting their craft, studying the fundamentals of light, color, perspective, proportion, before they produced masterpieces. Do you think Picasso woke up one morning and decided to invent Cubism? Similarly, you can't just wake up one morning, decide to write a book, and think you're going to get it right without having studied the fundamentals of the craft--grammar, plot, structure, character, to name a few.
The mistake I made until I wrote The Penitent Priest was thinking all I had to do was write. I did not take the time to study the fundamentals of how to write a story. I spent a lot of time reading about the writer's life, and you can benefit from the wisdom of other writers about their process, but much more valuable would have been a book or two on plot and structure. As a result, I got nowhere, I never finished a draft of anything. But when I decided in the wake of my cancer to finally write and complete a publishable book, I started with study. I listened to audio courses (thank you James Scott Bell), read books, found great resources on YouTube by authors, and incorporated what I learned into my writing the first draft. By the time I finished the first draft I actually thought I knew what I was doing. To edit, I studied editing and incorporated those lessons to work on drafts 2 and 3. I learned about beta readers, ARC reviewers, cover design. The publishing process was made a lot easier because I had actually researched how to publish and market a self-published book. Because of the conscious attempt I made to learn the craft of writing and publishing, The Penitent Priest was not yet another unpublished dumpster fire.
So before you start to write that story, read or listen to a book or two on the craft of writing. You'll find the entire process a lot easier, and who knows, you might even be able to get someone other than your mother to buy it!.
If the answer is anything other than no, we need to talk.
Too many people start the writing journey thinking all they have to do is sit down, write, and publish whatever they produce. Once they've done that, the readers will flock to their masterpiece and declare them the next [fill in their favorite author]. There is a term for these writers: unpublished. Unless they self-publish; then its unread.
You've never heard of these writers because their work is usually crap. It's unedited, unprofessional, and unreadable. For the most part, thankfully, it inhabits the darker corners of Amazon that feature such wonderful genres as dinosaur erotica (yes, that is a real thing, you can look it up...on second thought, don't). Even when they publish in more traditional genres their work is just bad and does not get a readership beyond their mother and maybe their friends.
This is not to discourage anyone from writing. If you think you have a story to tell then by all means start writing. Writing at the very least can be a good hobby that can give you hours of enjoyment. But if you think you might want to publish the masterpiece bubbling in your brain, then you need to approach writing the way you've approached any other skill you wanted to master--with study, hard work, and a large dose of humility.
"But James, writing is art. It relies on inspiration, not skill."
Writing is art, like painting or composing a symphony. But the great artists in history spent years perfecting their craft, studying the fundamentals of light, color, perspective, proportion, before they produced masterpieces. Do you think Picasso woke up one morning and decided to invent Cubism? Similarly, you can't just wake up one morning, decide to write a book, and think you're going to get it right without having studied the fundamentals of the craft--grammar, plot, structure, character, to name a few.
The mistake I made until I wrote The Penitent Priest was thinking all I had to do was write. I did not take the time to study the fundamentals of how to write a story. I spent a lot of time reading about the writer's life, and you can benefit from the wisdom of other writers about their process, but much more valuable would have been a book or two on plot and structure. As a result, I got nowhere, I never finished a draft of anything. But when I decided in the wake of my cancer to finally write and complete a publishable book, I started with study. I listened to audio courses (thank you James Scott Bell), read books, found great resources on YouTube by authors, and incorporated what I learned into my writing the first draft. By the time I finished the first draft I actually thought I knew what I was doing. To edit, I studied editing and incorporated those lessons to work on drafts 2 and 3. I learned about beta readers, ARC reviewers, cover design. The publishing process was made a lot easier because I had actually researched how to publish and market a self-published book. Because of the conscious attempt I made to learn the craft of writing and publishing, The Penitent Priest was not yet another unpublished dumpster fire.
So before you start to write that story, read or listen to a book or two on the craft of writing. You'll find the entire process a lot easier, and who knows, you might even be able to get someone other than your mother to buy it!.
Things I Learned Writing My Novel #1--Writing is Hard
Let me be clear. In spite of what some writers will tell you, writing is not the hardest job in the world. It is not as hard as roofing in Florida in the middle of July; you get to sit down in air conditioning to write. Its not brain surgery; no one is going to die if you make a mistake (unless you write murder mysteries). And it's definitely not as hard as parenting toddlers; your book is not going to smear poop on the walls (what is that smell?). There are many jobs harder than writing. For that matter many hobbies are harder--skydiving for example.
But make no mistake. Writing is hard. It is not for the faint-hearted. It’s not easy to sit down in front of your computer, or with your laptop, or with your pen and notebook (if you’re a Luddite) every day (yes, every day, or at least several times a week, but more on that later) and struggle to fill the blank screen/page with words that sound like they came from someone with reasonable intelligence. Most of the time, if you come up with anything, you’ll look at what you wrote and wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’ll think what you wrote was garbage (and in truth, it probably is, but again more on that later). Then you’ll open your browser (or another tab if you’re working in Google Docs) and spend an hour or so on Facebook or watching cat videos on Youtube.
Trust me. I’ve been there. It’s not pleasant.
But sometimes, you’ll write a scene that grips you so much you start crying halfway through. The words flow effortlessly from your brain through your fingertips onto the keyboard and appear as if by magic on the screen. Time stops. You forget where you are. When you’re done with the scene, your writing time is over and you’ve written a couple thousand words. And they’re not half bad.
It’s those times, as rare as they are, that makes writing so much fun. At least that’s what I’ve found. But to get there, you need to have the fortitude to get through the rough times. It’ll be a lot easier to do that if you begin by assuming it’s going to be hard most of the time.
But just remember--there’s a reason you started writing to begin with. The reasons are unique to each person; my reasons are not your reasons, and Stephen King’s reasons are not George R. R. Martin’s. Whatever they happen to be, keep the reasons in mind when faced with a particularly hard time in your writing. Focus on what motivated you to write in the first place, instead of how hard it is or how bad your writing seems. It will get you through the bad times. Because if you don’t get through the bad, you’ll never experience the great.
But make no mistake. Writing is hard. It is not for the faint-hearted. It’s not easy to sit down in front of your computer, or with your laptop, or with your pen and notebook (if you’re a Luddite) every day (yes, every day, or at least several times a week, but more on that later) and struggle to fill the blank screen/page with words that sound like they came from someone with reasonable intelligence. Most of the time, if you come up with anything, you’ll look at what you wrote and wonder why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’ll think what you wrote was garbage (and in truth, it probably is, but again more on that later). Then you’ll open your browser (or another tab if you’re working in Google Docs) and spend an hour or so on Facebook or watching cat videos on Youtube.
Trust me. I’ve been there. It’s not pleasant.
But sometimes, you’ll write a scene that grips you so much you start crying halfway through. The words flow effortlessly from your brain through your fingertips onto the keyboard and appear as if by magic on the screen. Time stops. You forget where you are. When you’re done with the scene, your writing time is over and you’ve written a couple thousand words. And they’re not half bad.
It’s those times, as rare as they are, that makes writing so much fun. At least that’s what I’ve found. But to get there, you need to have the fortitude to get through the rough times. It’ll be a lot easier to do that if you begin by assuming it’s going to be hard most of the time.
But just remember--there’s a reason you started writing to begin with. The reasons are unique to each person; my reasons are not your reasons, and Stephen King’s reasons are not George R. R. Martin’s. Whatever they happen to be, keep the reasons in mind when faced with a particularly hard time in your writing. Focus on what motivated you to write in the first place, instead of how hard it is or how bad your writing seems. It will get you through the bad times. Because if you don’t get through the bad, you’ll never experience the great.
