Writer stuff, may contain subversion
Mark Lawrence is a writer I like and admire, and he’s also someone who has managed to get a big, shiny publishing deal for a fantasy trilogy, so when he talks about writing, I pay attention… http://mark—lawrence.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/rules-to-write-by.html It’s a fine blog, do have a read. It’s a fair depiction of the writing life, the uncertainties, insanities and challenges. If I had believed how crazy a business it is, I would never have started. But, I was sure I could do it and that what I had to say was worth saying, and more than a decade later I’m pottering along selling the odd book. Fame and fortune are rare in writing, most of us will stay obscure. If we get lucky, we get a niche audience and reason not to quit.
From Mark’s blog I learned that his first 2 attempts at novel writing did not make it into public spaces. Talking to other authors, and people who want to be authors, this is a normal, healthy, necessary part of the process. Odds are you won’t even finish the first draft of the first book, because you learn so much just by trying it, that by about three quarters of the way through you know that it sucks. No one would expect to write an opera starting from cold, or to design a shopping centre. Writing is as much an art form as every other art form; a bit of practice, experimenting, messing up and learning is required. Only by doing this, do we find out if we were good enough. Giving ourselves permission to mess up is essential for being able to try things, and to grow. So try it, and don’t worry about ‘failing’ because getting a couple of barely finished, unsatisfying books under your belt is part of the initiation process.
The internet lets us put our every thought in public, barely considered. It’s tempting to rush that first book over to amazon and self-publish it, confident that the world will rush in to buy it and it’ll be like 50 Shades of Grey all over again. Except it probably won’t. I think we all expect that somehow, by magic, that will happen to us. It doesn’t, and those apparently fluky stories of wild success are seldom quite as they seem to be. It takes years of hard work to become an overnight success.
I’d encourage anyone to write who felt inspiration to take up pen or keyboard. Writing for the love of it is a wonderful thing. Writing for the joy of sharing with some likeminded folk is well worth your time. Be it a blog, a local poetry group, or your offspring, writing to share is sublime. It is possible to write for money. I know a few people who actually do quite well at this. The reality is not overnight success, or wealth, or ease. It’s years of working hard for long hours and getting little pay, or holding down a regular job and writing when you can, and there are no guarantees. As Mark points out, there is no magic formula for fame and fortune. Bad reviews, hideous rejection letters, books that flop… it is an industry that will keep hurting you, no matter how good or successful you are.
But if I haven’t put you off, and you still want to write, here’s my 5 things to do…
1) Read everything you can, especially in the area you want to write in. This will help you avoid repeating what already exists, falling into cliché, and failing to understand the section of market. It will also help you if you ever need to try and sell your book to a publisher.
2) Be interested in everything. The world is full of ideas, inspiration, possibilities, events, people. A good imagination is nice, but the more you know about reality, the better able you are to imagine well and convincingly. On top of this, research what you’re writing about, it helps to get technical details right and gives you more material to work with.
3) Either write your autobiography, or write fiction. A thinly veiled reworking of your life in which you become a famous author, or turn out to have super powers, is not going to be a good read. Or, get it out of your system as the first book, safe in the knowledge that you’re never going to show it to anyone.
4) Write often enough that you can honestly say ‘I am a writer’ not ‘I am someone who has a fantasy about being a famous author.’ You’ll irritate fewer people, and actually get something written. I’m not an advocate of ‘something every day no matter what’ although I do blog most days. Just not when I’m feeling ill or really stupid.
5) Don’t do it for the money. There are lots of things you can do for money where there’s a decent chance of getting paid, and where the work you don’t won’t suffer from your desire to make a small fortune. Do it for some money, sure. It’s good to be rewarded for work. Write for paying markets, sell your work, but if money is all you care about, you probably won’t write good stuff. You’ll write what you imagine is going to sell, and there’s a lot of that out there already, and it doesn’t sell anywhere near as much as people think it will. Readers don’t want easily marketable, commercially viable books. Readers want, and buy, good books that interest and entertain them. Ironically, if you want to be a wild commercial success, you can’t afford to think about too commercially about writing.
