Industry insiders could probably make several lists of twenty-four secrets or misunderstood facts or contentious minutiae about publishing, but here’s a good list on the writing life from Curtis Sittenfeld. I like this one most:
10. The goal is not to be a media darling; the goal is to have a career.
Neil Gaiman explains one of the easy ways to become a writer. You just wake up one day, after having tasted the fruit of a certain tree. You’ll see what I mean.
Nicci Cloke writes about beginning the year as a new novelist.
This time of year is one of the worst for The Doubts, with social media churning out list upon list of books to look out for in 2015. Author Claire King rightly explains here how unnecessarily stressful it can be — especially for a debut novelist — to scan those and not find your book listed. And, let’s be honest — there’s always some handy stick-shaped internet fodder you can find to beat your poor old ego with.
In the post to which Ms. Cloke links, Ms. King observes, “MOST of us are not the most anticipated. But if your pool of debut authors is limited to you and the ones everyone is shouting about on twitter and in the newspapers it’s very easy to feel like the poor relation.”
Author Jeff Vandermeer, a three-time Fantasy World Award-winning novelist who co-directs the Shared Worlds teen writing camp, says, “The way we’re taught to analyze fiction is to break down and do a kind of autopsy. But I think writers need to be more like naturalists or zoologists when they study story because then you’re looking at how all the elements fit together.”
See infographics illustrating this idea and more from Wonderbook: The Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction.
Author Rachel Starr Thompson takes up valuable space in an interview to say nice things about my work.
I could never do the grit Lars Walker does, but I kind of wish I had written The Year of the Warrior. Wolf Time is amazing too. Actually, I love all of Lars’s books. – See more here
Everyone has a novel in them, they say. And those works of art or escapism should be published for everyone to read. Apparently, millions and millions of books are being published in the US every year. A small percentage of those books are novels (or fiction novels, as some call them). A very small percentage of the novels published over the last three or four years have depicted the world in chaos as Harry Potter and his friends discover they have been left behind in a uniquely British rapture.
A little under 200,000 people profess to be writers in the US. The rest are too ashamed to admit it. The latter are mostly the ones who participate in library-sponsored parties for NaNoWriMo writers, where anyone can gather with other strangers for a few hours to scribble or type at the first of at least 50,000 words. They will be hear great advice, like this from Chris Baty:
Many will say, “Just get it written.” They may insist, “The story must get out of you.” But let these stats depress you. And while you’re thinking over your plans for next month’s exercise, ask yourself whether your story is worth pursuing.
“Nine times out of ten, your idea is really quite mediocre and has been done before, actually a number of times and in a number of different ways,” Laurie Scheer states, but you haven’t read those stories. You’re just invested in your own. What still lies before you is the biggest challenge for all writers today: whether you want to write or to have written.
Go ahead and write 50,000 words next month, and if you love it enough to keep at it, then keep writing. Words are awesome. If you don’t love it, maybe you can organize that library party into a community lacrosse team.
Here’s an amazing in-the-moment video of an actual writer working his craft!
Remaining in the deep pockets of the short-sentence lobby for years was enough incentive to prevent Roy Peter Clark from writing this piece in favor of the long-sentence opposition party.
“When I fight this anxiety,” he writes, “when I advise writers to ‘Fear not the long sentence,’ my encouragement inspires looks of alarm from teachers as if I were advocating taking all the garter snakes out of high school terrariums and replacing them with anacondas.”
Or a natural fear of powerful, short-sentence lobbyists, who might leave conveniently unedited documents on reporters’ desks which could embarrass their former supporters. Clark appears to have no fear, however, spilling the beans with items like this:
By my count, there are three main reasons to cast a long sentence:
- To take a journey through a physical or emotional landscape.
- To create a catalogue or inventory.
- To build a mosaic of logic or evidence.
Barnabas Piper reminds writers that their ideas are their products, so they should work through product development before launching them. “It means that you are probably the worst judge of whether your idea works.”
Aaron Armstrong also has a bit of encouragement on writing better.
Megan McArdle, a columnist at Bloomberg View, attempts to explain why writers are great procrastinators. She suggests many, perhaps most, writers haven’t failed enough. They have rested on their natural talent for too long and believe that the talent is all they have to offer. They don’t see their talent as a muscle that will grow with exercise; rather they see it as a solid that can be tested for purity. If the world discovers they aren’t as good as they sometimes appear to be, they will be certifiably, undeniably doomed.
“This fear of being unmasked as the incompetent you ‘really’ are,” McArdle writes, “is so common that it actually has a clinical name: impostor syndrome. A shocking number of successful people (particularly women), believe that they haven’t really earned their spots, and are at risk of being unmasked as frauds at any moment. Many people deliberately seek out easy tests where they can shine, rather than tackling harder material that isn’t as comfortable.”
When faced with this fear, people may choose to hamper their own performance. She quotes Alain de Botton, saying, “Work finally begins when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.” “For people with an extremely fixed mind-set,” she continues, “that tipping point quite often never happens. They fear nothing so much as finding out that they never had what it takes.” (via Lore Ferguson)