Writers Tips #89: Henry Miller's Ten Commandments of Writing
Great tips for soon-to-be great writers
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can't quite put your finger on it, but you know you've done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer's tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Before fame claimed him as a writer, five-times married (and divorced) Henry Miller's work experience included a bellboy, garbage collector, cement mixer, gravedigger, employment manager at Western Union, employee at Park Department in Queens, manager of New York City speakeasy, and proofreader on the Paris edition of The Chicago Tribune. After a full and long eighty years of life, he summed up his goals in this way:
"(My) ideal is to be free of ideals, free of principles, free of isms and ideologies. I want to take to the ocean of life like a fish takes to the sea."
Today, he is best known as the controversial American author of numerous books, including the sexually-explicit Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, shared what he considered to be the Ten Commandments of writing (originally published in Henry Miller on Writing). See if you agree:
1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to the program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people; go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it–but go back to it the next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a technology curriculum for K-fifth grade and creator of two technology training books for middle school. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter's journey from high school to United States Naval Academy midshipman. She is webmaster for five blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, IMS tech expert, and a weekly contributor to Write Anything and Technology in Education. Currently, she's editing a thriller for her agent that should be be out to publishers this summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
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