One thing I really want to do on the new site (and, in the meantime, on this blog) is to collect and/or produce helpful resources for other writers. I certainly don’t know everything there is to know about writing (nor will I presume to), and therefore will be looking in plenty of dark corners for new insight. I use this site as a primary resource for improving my writing, and I would hope to be able to offer some of my own experience back as a resource for others. As one evolving writer to a community of evolving writers, I thought I could share some of what I’ve been through so far, and new things as they reveal themselves. I’m interested in trying to help writers who sincerely want to improve and become better writers, because that’s what I want for myself. (What that means is, although I often will write “you,” I really mean, “me.” If my advice is “You need to finish that short story you started weeks ago,” it means I started a short story MONTHS ago and my roommate got us cable, so I’m gaining weight and not word count.)
Today I got some notes from Sarah, in what was a bit of serendipitous timing, to zap my ass into gear. One of the pledges I made was to post on this blog once a week – something I’ve failed to do for these two weeks since making that promise. This coincided with me reading a bit of stirring writing advice which prompted me to make a schedule for myself. Hence, this post.
Something that I almost always forget, and I’d wager many others forget as well, is that writing is WORK.
Writing can be fun, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be, but to be even a little bit serious about it requires discipline. And I’m sure it’s the most common, clichéd bit of writing advice out there and there’s no way to say it that hasn’t been said before, but that doesn’t make it any less true or less useful. It’s something that I’ve known for years, and preached all along, but it’s much easier said than done.
If you want to write anything that’s any sort of good, if you want to write more than once and write more than one thing, if you want to write something that’s longer, or, worse, shorter, and above all, if you want to be READ by other people, then be prepared to spend a lot more time writing than you thought it would take. You can’t just sit down for five minutes every few months and expect Shakespeare to pour out.
It’s hard to do when the only thing motivating you to write is you. Most of us on this site aren’t professional writers. Some of you are in college, though, and you have the external motivation of writing for classes. And this is fantastic – take advantage of it while you can. I was my most prolific (to date) in college – magazine deadlines, due dates for fiction classes, submission deadlines for lit journals. The difference between writing in college and writing for public consumption is that in college, you get to PAY people to give you deadlines. After college, you have to get good enough to deserve an editor or publisher pushing you around with a deadline. Then, maybe, maybe, maybe, you get paid.
And if you don’t ever make a dime at writing, that’s fine. Not everyone expects to, or maybe even cares to. Most of the people here (myself included) are traveling on the writing road, not quite sure where it goes. Some of us have gone farther than others. Some are going faster, some slower, some might have stopped at a state liquor store. Maybe a few will take the first exit they see, maybe a few won’t even notice anything but what’s directly in front of them.
But if you’re on this workshop, then chances are, you identify yourself with that slippery notion of being a Writer. (Heaven’s sakes!)
You might say to yourself, “Well, I write things, but I wouldn’t call myself a writer…”
Well, why the heck not? That’s pretty much the definition!
“But I don’t do it for a living…”
Neither did any professional writer, at first, but publishable material doesn’t just come out of thin air. Every single professional writer was once an unpaid, unpublished, amateur writer, but a writer nonetheless.
Thinking of yourself as a writer, and thinking of writing as work, are fundamental. Everything else comes from there. It’s work that won’t make you any money at first, or maybe ever – in fact, it’ll cost you money: pens and paper, computers and printers, schools, workshops, stamps and submission fees, coffee, booze, anxiety medication, corrective eyewear, and of course books to read, because you can’t write in a vacuum. But you do what you have to to write. I also cook in a restaurant and substitute teach, but I don’t identify myself chiefly as either of those things. Maybe some of you identify first as a parent or a student or a firefighter or a wizard, and that’s awesome, but none of those mean you can’t say, “…and I’m a writer, too.”
So now that we’re all telling the world we’re writers, well, we have to back it up by writing.
Which means working at writing.
It means setting regular times to write, and thinking about it like going to a job or a class, and you can’t just skip because no one will slap your wrist. It means setting concrete goals for how much you get done before you stop, and not checking to see what’s on TV. It means revising, regularly and ideally with a bit of distance, because nothing’s too good to get tossed out, and nothing’s too bad to get a second look.
I’ve set aside my writing time (on paper it looks like a college class schedule), I’ve set my goals for output (weighted and complex as a tax plan) and I’ve got a support network writing community (mad as hatters, every last one of ‘em, and for some reason perpetually olive-green).
I know what I need to be doing.
Now I need to sit down and do it.
(And if I don’t write another one of these on time next week, someone yell at me!)
