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Joined: 5/7/2011
Posts: 35
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This post is dedicated to the aspiring author who frets with the discipline of writing their first novel. This is not about the creative aspect, plot, theme, etc. This is solely aimed at the discipline of putting thought to paper. First thing is first: Take a deep breath…exhale. Still with me? Excellent! There is one notion I express to all aspiring authors I talk to: There is a story within all of us. Granted, having it come to life can be a little tricky, but the emphasis in this post is focused on DOING! What is DOING? Sitting down and committing yourself to putting thoughts on paper. Debate continues in regards to how many words you need to write per day. So-called experts proclaim a minimum of 1000, others more, and some express less. By the Gods…don’t concern yourself with a number. The important issue is just sitting down and creating a pace that’s comfortable for you. Obviously, the amount you write on any given day will differ, and that’s perfectly okay. The victory is building a routine that keeps you consistently in front of your notebook, laptop, typewriter, or 3-ring binder on a daily basis. If you’re just beginning, start small…and don’t punish yourself if you fall short of a preestablished goal. Just pick it up the following day and move forward. In my case, the daily writing regiment is all over the board. Some days I exclusively write. On other days I only edit or do a combination of editing and writing. Hell, sometimes I say screw it, and turn on the X-box. One recommendation I have, which may buck many voiced opinions is this: From time to time, hop from one project to another. This has a tendency to keep things fresh when you revisit each piece of work. While writing my novel, Shadows of Kings, I was hopping between future novels in the series. This kept my creative juices flowing and ensured I didn’t make any continuity errors with the saga. I call myself a four-booker: I’m generally working on four pieces of work at a time with one being the primary project. Just keep at it…you’re doing great! With that said, I leave you with this quote from Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” Any thoughts?
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 608
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I'm going to be following this discussion thread very closely. I look forward to reading and pondering the sage, hard-earned wisdom of others.
Thanks for throwing those of us who have not yet completed "the long form" a life-line, Jack!
PS. I always enjoy your posts. You write with unvarnished authenticity and easy, earned authority, leavened with humor and insight.
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Joined: 4/28/2011
Posts: 60
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Dear Jack,
You sound like my mother. Or maybe it’s Calvin Coolidge who sounds like her. If she wasn’t a Canadian and a self-professed illiterate in American history, I’d say she’s been quoting Coolidge all her life. Actually, I should say all MY life. I think I’ve been hearing her lecture me about persistence and persistent people since I was five. But since she’s my mother I feel the ongoing need to contradict her, despite my current age. So, consider yourself privileged when I say this: you’re right and so is Calvin Coolidge and so (shudder!) is my mother. Persistence is the key. Yes, talent is important. So are brilliant ideas, but without execution neither has much value. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of late nights and hair-tearing sessions (That’s really painful when your hair is as long as mine, which reminds me: I need to get it trimmed.) to successfully complete a novel. But it also takes something else, something I think we touched on in another discussion you started, and that’s courage.
I say it takes courage because all authors risk themselves when they share their work with others, however impersonal we may think our work is. In truth, there is a bit of ourselves in every word we write. As such, we risk feeling that it is ourselves who are being rejected and judged when we put our work out there for others to read and others to decide on. Yes, we can remind ourselves to be professionals and not take things personally, but when it is our breath in the words that’s an incredibly difficult thing to do.
So, here’s to persistence, hard work, courage, and Calvin Coolidge. Oh, and lest I forget, here’s also to my mother and William Lyon Mackenzie King.
Sincerely, LR Waterbury
P.S. That last dude was prime minister of Canada when Coolidge was in office. Think of him as the FDR of Canada, but without the charisma and the polio.
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Joined: 5/7/2011
Posts: 35
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@Carl: Thank you, Carl. I feel bad since this is the first time I've posted on this site in awhile. Things are getting pretty busy on my side of the universe. I will put more effort in attending.
@waterbury: Mothers are wonderful. It was my mom who originally brought this quote to my attention. And you're right...it does take courage and a thick skin to put yourself out there. Persistence is the key. Buggers to talent, pedigree and education. I've never considered myself a talented writer, but I'm a decent storyteller who got lucky . Now I have to see how far I can run with this luck 
Cheers
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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It's funny that you speak of persistence in writing, because that is all that it comes down to. A true writer works. I learned this lesson a couple of different ways. First was in high school when I was working on The Descendants while my teachers would write things on the board and try to teach us something. I had a goal to write a couple pages everyday so that my friends could read them. I never had the inclination to write when I was "inspired," I saved that for my drawings. (As a side note: I wanted to be an illustrator and comic book artist.) I never knew then that I was setting a basic foundation for proper writing practices.
Then I started college. My freshman year taught me that, while I was a descent artist, my true passion was the written word. I decided to take a creative writing class and turn my high school novel (now divided 4 novels) into a serious project. Most creative writing courses are workshop based. You write one or two stories and share them with other the class or what not. Mine was not so. I had the wonderful experience of having Dr. John Irsfeld, the king of writing boot camp. Why do I say this? Instead of writing 2 stories, we wrote 7. Each one was due every 2 weeks and we had to have minimum of 3,525 words if we wished to pass his 25,000 word mark by the end of the semester. (You could turn in a few smaller works if you wrote shorter things, but you had to make your word count.) You had to format your work to his specifications and it could NOT be late, or you would be docked a percentage of your words. Fall behind and you worked harder. Oh, and he could tell if you didn't edit it. It sounded easy, but by the end it was as if someone had held my face to the road while they drove along at 40 mph. One girl at the end held her hands up in surrender. Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I took his class twice. Workshops be damned, I learned more from myself than anyone has been able to teach me. It was because of him that I found out about Book Country.
Yet when here is the rub. I have friends that I have fought with about the importance of discipline in writing. One no longer speaks to me because I told her that writers block does not exist. The only way to get anything done is to work. Practicing writing is like any art form being it of the creative tradition or the martial tradition. The only way you get any better is to work on it. Dr. Irsfeld used to tell us that you have to train your muse. You must sit in the same place everyday at the same time so that she knows where to find you. I try to adhere to his words, but I must admit they are quite difficult.
Now I try to do something with my writing. It might be research, editing, or just pounding out rewrites of the stuff I wrote when I was 14. I always have multiple projects going on. I also keep a notebook in my purse as every disciplined writer should. (I must spend my money on Moleskine's because the cheap ones don't last at all.) I did go through college, and my education has helped me out quite a bit, but you have to love writing too. I guess my mom was right when she said I was going to grow up to be an author.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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OK, this is where I come in and play Devil's Advocate. Mostly because that's just the kind of perverse person I am...
I agree that persistence is one of the keys of being a professional author. It doesn't matter how talented you are, if you never put pen to paper, you'll never get anything done. I type fast. I can write original fiction nearly as fast as I can type. I've been told it's not bad, that I have talent. None of that makes any difference - even writing two thousand words an hour it still takes two solid days (or more sanely two solid weeks) to get a full length novel onto the page. So yeah, persistence is one of the keys.
BUT...
I've seen too many times where someone with no talent, no genius, and, probably more important than either, no basic writing skills tries to replace all of that with persistence. I read posted snippets or things sent to me and instead of thinking 'how can I help them improve this' I'm thinking 'the list of problems is going to be longer than the MS'.
Now, before anyone gets antsy, I've gotten more good beta reads than bad, but that's just luck on my part.
My point here is that while you *must* have persistence, it's not a silver bullet. There are no silver bullets, there are no wooden stakes, there are no brass rings. There is no single thing that will replace all the other things. If you come into writing with the idea that skill doesn't matter, you're going to cause a lot of pain for other people, and probably quite a lot for yourself.
Yes, writing takes persistence. It also takes grammar, and spelling, and research, and punctuation, and linguistics, and plot, and character, and setting, and tropes and storytelling and a love of the art form.
But trust me about the sunscreen. Wait, no. I meant to say persistence is high on that list, since with it you can get all those other skills.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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@Robert: I agree, there is a lot more to writing than persistence. That is why I prefer to say discipline because you have to have all the other skills to go with it. The same friend who I fought with over writer's block argued with me that she didn't need to do research because she was writing science FICTION. She failed to see that even fiction has to be researched so that readers can make connections to our reality. It is true that persistence is only a portion of the battle. Writing is work. I agree with you. Writing is not as romantic as people think. Its hard if done properly, really hard.
I would like to add something to the list of what writing takes. So far we have research, grammar, editing, plot, character, setting, theme, persistence, and love. I would like to add patience because you need that to sit down and take the time needed to do all the things listed above.
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Joined: 3/12/2011
Posts: 376
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Ayep. Patience is a requirement. Especially when waiting for replies from agents and editors.
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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Patience is hard. I'm waiting on the winners posting for a contest I entered. My hands itch from the waiting.
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Joined: 8/4/2011
Posts: 12
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First, a minor diatribe, or just a small disagreement I have with one of Jack's (may I call you Jack?) conjectures:
I do not believe there is a story within all of us. We may all have stories, but that doesn't mean they are interesting or require telling. I have been to enough writing conferences and workshops to know this is true. Both the talented sloths and the persistent yet unskilled sentence makers will die from encouragement if permitted.
It has been my experience that people believe they can write because they passed English in high school. I worked in movies for a long time, toiling on the fringes with occasional forays onto the studio lots. Pitches were made, scripts were optioned, and all the while I worked at the craft of writing because I wanted to be the best storyteller that I could be.
Meanwhile, no matter where I went - party, coffee shop, blind date - I would meet somebody who flushed out of acting, directing, interior designing, tire rotating, or gumball machine engineering who was working on a screenplay because "How hard can it be?"
Extremely. It is extremely hard to exhibit the discipline to punch one's own clock and train one's muse as Ms. Holt put it. And, we are all in agreement that persistence and the benchmarks of craft that Mr. Roman outlined will embrace talent so the aspiring author will shine above those in his cohort wondering how hard it can be.
The ability to perceive the world through equations and mathematical theorem is not inherent to all. Neither is the ability to paint or compose music, yet, somehow writing and storytelling has received a democratized reputation. This kind of breaks my heart.
Second, total agreement:
Hey, aspiring author, you have to sit down and do it. Make it the same spot every single day, and, when you've been at it a while, a long while, then you can feel free to make your process a little looser. Try to limit the distractions (Internet). Make yourself work for an hour and see if you want to stop when that hour ends (Spoiler: Most of the time you will not even feel the hour pass. You will probably feel every one of the first 20 minutes of that hour when you're hemming and hawing about getting up and whether you have it that day, but after that…smooth sailing).
At the beginning I would stick to one thing at a time. At the very least finish one draft of one story at a time. I would also advise structuring stories in a very conventional way. See if you can get to point B from A without flashing back to -AA, you know what I mean? Get the basics down, fancypants!!!
And, finally (and I state this for myself as well as you for the best advice is often what one needs to hear oneself), always maintain the sense of wonder and joy that made you want to be a writer in the first place. And try not to be too tortured. Oh, and do be patient, as the others have said. Brilliance doesn't happen overnight.
That will have to do for now because I am denying my own advice by distracting myself with the Internet instead of working on this tale that is consuming me that pertains to the Mad Prophet of the 21st century.
Thanks for reading,
Don Kelly
AKA Dedlly
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Joined: 5/7/2011
Posts: 35
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@Robert, Leeanna, dedlly,
Thank you! All your feedback is great.
Every point made is valid. My only disagreement is that I truly do believe everyone has a story to tell. How they express it...another bag
of beans. And never follow the conventional wisdom...expecially from the so called experts who run the workshops and conferences. I know some are pretty good, but most can be likened to attending a Richard Simmons: sweating to the oldies seminar. I got published utilizing persistence, creativity, and drive. And if I can get published, any human with a heartbeat can.
Cheers
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Joined: 4/30/2011
Posts: 662
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Mr. Dedlly, thanks for the shout out! I admit that I must agree with the idea of Jack's that everyone has a story to tell. Everyone does, it just depends on how well they can do it., or if they can do it at all. I am one of those that agrees that anyone who wants to be writer must be devoted to the practice mind, body, and soul. (Maybe that is a tad overdramatic, but you get the point.) I have read and seen enough bad stories to know that few are truly good. Even though I've been writing since I knew my letters (not a joke, ask my mother), I would never say that I'm worthy of anyones time. Despite my thoughts, I keep on going, trying to train my muse. Like any art form, its practice, practice, practice.
On a fun little aside, one of my greatest pet peeves is the phrase, "I write when I'm inspired." I suddenly get the violent desire to remove their fingers, but that is illegal.
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Joined: 4/27/2011
Posts: 18
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There are many ways to go with this great topic, and many fine points have already been made.
Persistence is absolutely essential. And as AKA noted, once the "writing" begins, time usually flies pretty quickly. That's why as a general rule I don't worry about word count or even strict time committed (tho both can be applied in extreme circumstances) but rather just that I work on something almost every day, given other concerns (unless you're wealthy or already a successful full-time writer, you know what I mean).
I say "almost" because I think the writing should be treated as a job, and I have never had a job that made me work seven days a week. OTOH, it's a lame part-time job that only gives you a few hours a week---and if your intent is to get published, you really should think of time committed in terms of potential reward. That is, you are attempting to produce a marketable product, and you are your own labor force and your own boss. It's one of the underdiscussed allures of the occupation.
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