F.R. Larkin
I’m writing another short guide book called “How to Talk to Your Dog About Sex”. It will be another entry in our “Fast and Filthy Guide” series under the Heat & Stir brand my wife Irene and I started. It’s about that conversation you have (with your dog of course) after your dog sees you having sex. It’s exactly as crazy as it sounds, probably a lot crazier if you’re not familiar with my work, but I look forward to sitting down to it every day possible.
What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
The best advice I can give is to not treat writing any differently than you would any other task. Think of writing as you would think about sweeping your floor, or painting your bedroom. It’s a task that must be done. And like other difficult, time consuming tasks, if you make too much out of it, you probably won’t do it.
I have a couple of full-length books sitting at the 75-85% completion stage, so I know of procrastination and avoidance. The good news is, now you can self-publish so your book can be any damn length. Write something short to start with, just so you can actually finish the damn thing… say 20,000 words, then work up to a full-length work. Besides, you’ll learn a hell of a lot about marketing (and writing) by just getting yourself out there.
Get yourself a decent sized dry-erase board and put your book title at the top. Put columns for the date, hours worked (actually writing – not surfing), the day’s word count and a final column for the total word count to date. Repeat that every day you work and add a star next to days you write at least a thousand words, and two stars for 2K. At the bottom of your dry erase board put a progress bar, fill that thing in when you hit milestones like a quarter way there, etc. It’s a great motivator. If you’re writing a full-length book, figure 80K depending on the genre less or more, but make a guesstimate and go. The idea is to write like hell, because you need volume to edit, you need to go to places that suck ass to get to places that kick ass. You need to fucking write.
What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
The best advice I can give is to not treat writing any differently than you would any other task. Think of writing as you would think about sweeping your floor, or painting your bedroom. It’s a task that must be done. And like other difficult, time consuming tasks, if you make too much out of it, you probably won’t do it.
I have a couple of full-length books sitting at the 75-85% completion stage, so I know of procrastination and avoidance. The good news is, now you can self-publish so your book can be any damn length. Write something short to start with, just so you can actually finish the damn thing… say 20,000 words, then work up to a full-length work. Besides, you’ll learn a hell of a lot about marketing (and writing) by just getting yourself out there.
Get yourself a decent sized dry-erase board and put your book title at the top. Put columns for the date, hours worked (actually writing – not surfing), the day’s word count and a final column for the total word count to date. Repeat that every day you work and add a star next to days you write at least a thousand words, and two stars for 2K. At the bottom of your dry erase board put a progress bar, fill that thing in when you hit milestones like a quarter way there, etc. It’s a great motivator. If you’re writing a full-length book, figure 80K depending on the genre less or more, but make a guesstimate and go. The idea is to write like hell, because you need volume to edit, you need to go to places that suck ass to get to places that kick ass. You need to fucking write.
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