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Reflections on Writing: Just Do It!
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Have you ever felt as though finishing a book was a major and insurmountable task? How many times have you received that competition entry form, resolved to enter, yet have let everything slip by the closing date, again? I don’t know about you but this used to be an all too familiar theme in my world. Too often I was completely without a valid excuse for letting myself down. I am my own worst enemy. Are you yours?
The one thing that I have found to be totally effective against enemy invasion is to (and I quote a famous sports brand here) JUST DO IT! Yeah, sure, you really need to read that book (research? I’ve used that excuse to death and loved it – but it hasn’t helped me to achieve what I want), sure the kids need to be fed (life’s necessities? – get real, teach them how to microwave a pie. Really, once a week isn’t going to kill them and their future spouse/partner will be eternally grateful), sure you have to answer the phone (and talk, for how long?) – when you’re writing and if you don’t have an answering machine, treat every call like a business call, 10 minutes tops! (stop laughing – you CAN do it!).
If you really want writing to be your business, you have to treat it honestly. The honest part starts with you. You want to write (so do I!). Simple answer, write. You want to finish a book. Simple answer, finish it.
Reality check, what do you need to do, or change, in your life or your thinking, to hurdle the barriers you have erected that prevent you from achieving what you want with your writing?
I’ve always told myself I need silence, total silence, to write effectively. Basically I was signing my own writing death warrant. For heavens sake! I live in a house with two teenage daughters and a husband who thinks Jethro Tull is God’s gift to the music world (save me!) Silence is not an option. I have only now learned to work in noise. Yes, it was difficult. Yes, I argued with myself all the way. But guess what? I can sit and write (okay, I’ll admit it, I haven’t quite conquered the JT background caterwauling) but bit by bit, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph… it’s all coming together again. I’m writing after what feels like forever. Okay, so I’ll worry about continuity another time… but seriously, all I can say to anyone who isn’t reaching their heart’s desire with their writing is to JUST DO IT. One bite at a time.
Reflections on Writing: The Professional Approach
It seems to me that writing success comes with a whole ton of talent. Now, lots of people are talented writers but how many have that extra strength, that determination, that stickability… that professional approach? There are several things that set a professional writer apart from those of us who kid ourselves we’re writers. From observation, I’ve noticed there are at least ten things that have to be observed, constantly.
Work at writing, daily
Even if it is only a sentence. It could be the one sentence that you don’t need to edit later on. It could be the best sentence you ever wrote, or the worst, but the important thing is you’ve written.
Set goals and review them, weekly
Things change, life changes, your goals need to be flexible, and achievable, but most of all you need to have them. If you don’t, how do you know where you are going? What do you want, today, this week, this month, this year?
Set aside some time to listen to successful people’s advice
They have so much to offer, and they give it generously. Read ‘how-to’ books, attend workshops, go to conferences. Listen, and learn.
Don’t procrastinate
Okay, those of you who know me well can scrape your ‘weak-from-too-much-laughter’ bodies from the floor this instance!) Tackle the things you like the least, first. Get them out of the way so you have plenty of time for what you really want to do. This is closely followed by momentum. Once you’ve started – KEEP GOING! Don’t stop. It is so much easier to keep moving forward when you don’t have to shove yourself back off square one, again.
Training
There are so many different ways we can train ourselves in this ‘wonderful’ industry. There are courses to go on, exercises to participate in, or join a critique group (Romance Writers Of New Zealand has a Co-operative Critiquing Scheme, for instance). Hand in hand with training are competitions. Use them to train yourself to write to a deadline and be specific about what you’re writing – a first meeting, an opening chapter, a query letter, a synopsis, a full manuscript even!
Never make excuses
They do nothing for your self-esteem, your writing, or your professionalism. Not only do you know you’re skipping out on your obligations to yourself, but so too do your writing buddies. When you make excuses (and I’m not talking Acts of God here) you are letting yourself down, badly. Number nine, remain focused. Not the easiest thing in the world, especially when life and Acts of God intrude. We need to work out what keeps us focussed. Keeping your goals somewhere where you can see them daily can help. Create your bookcover and put it around a book on your bookshelf. Imagine it on the shop shelves, in someone’s shopping bag, on a dedicated fan’s bedside table. Practice signing your writing name (just not in your chequebook!)
And last but not least...
Be responsible for what you do with your writing
Keep working at it, don’t lose sight of your dream. Dream it, live it, be it… that’s all it takes.
All that… and a whole ton of talent.
Reflections on Writing: Looking For the Diamond in the Rough
I opened a carton of ice cream today to dish up some dessert for my girls. The inside of the lid was all sparkly – kind of like a million tiny diamonds, each reflecting the light. Now some might say that the ice cream had been too long in the freezer, but all I could see was the glitter of those tiny little diamonds. It was truly beautiful and quite took my mind off the mountain of dishes, behind me, waiting to be stacked in the dishwasher.
When you read a book and find you aren’t enjoying it, do you remember to look for the diamonds? It is all too easy to take a negative approach to what you’re reading, and in a massive dose of as-yet-unpublished-writer’s-egomania (of which I have been terribly guilty from time to time) you could say, “I can do better than that!” Sound familiar?
The hardest thing to remember when you read something that just doesn’t reflect the sparkles for you is that an editor liked this book enough to believe that others would like it too. The editor bought it, no matter how much you may doubt their judgement ?!
As writers we need to develop the objectivity required to be able to read even the books we don’t enjoy, and to seek what is within them that made that particular manuscript stand out above all the others (yours and mine included – ouch!) It could very well be that what niggles with you is what makes that book special and gives it its own voice. Look at all the things the author has done well; does the dialogue sparkle? Are the hero and heroine constantly together? Are you left in no doubt that their feelings for one another transcend everything and everyone around them? Do you know from the beginning that these two belong together, forever, but it is going to be one heck of a bumpy ride before they get there?
We’ve heard it before and no doubt we’ll hear it again, “Don’t keep reinventing the wheel.” If a tried and true plotline works, don’t disregard how powerful it will be when told with a fresh new twist – your twist, your sparkle. Focus on what we do right, and we’ll get there – eventually.
And remember to look for the diamonds, they’re everywhere.
Reflections on Writing: It's All A Matter of Perspective
What? you say… Perspective.
A few years ago, and excuse the ‘proud mum’ talk here, my eldest daughter (then 12) scored top marks in her school speech. Now, that doesn’t surprise me because she is a serious talker. But what blew me away with her speech was the content, more particularly, her perspective. That year our family suffered a major blow when my father died, at the end of February, as the result of a brain tumour. It was a very sad and difficult time, and while I thought we’d been as open and supportive of the children as was possible at the time, it occurred to me when I heard my daughter’s speech that I’d never really understood her perspective. Editing her speech with her was one of the toughest and most wrenching things I’ve ever had to do, because five months later I was finally seeing, in her words and in her way, what she went through. In her speech she mentioned the day we found out about Dad’s latest, and last, melanoma and how she never dreamed he’d die because he’d always been so strong and had survived many (nine) operations before. And then, she talked about how she felt once he was gone. Truly, her perspective on the whole five weeks from diagnosis to death was an amazing insight. No wonder she had her teacher reduced to tears, no wonder she scored top marks.
Sharing her perspective has encouraged me to look at my writing differently too. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have been terribly guilty of ‘author intrusion’. Using my voice in my writing, instead of the character’s. And seriously, each character has their own very distinct way of seeing, tasting, smelling and saying things. What a fire-fighter will compare a warm day to, is probably vastly different to what a priest might, and the way they say it will differ greatly too. Who are we to say it differently? Who are we to do it our way? As writers aren’t we merely telling someone else’s romance story, their way?
Yep, it’s all a matter of perspective all right. Shame that no one said it would be easy.
Oh, and the title for her speech … “Life is like a box of chocolates – you just never know what you’re gonna get”.
