"when we freaks die, where do we go? not heaven, not hell, so…" "LEGOLAND?!"
Five writing rules from Cory Doctorow: 1. Write every day. Anything you do every day gets easier. If you’re insanely busy, make the amount that you write every day small (100 words? 250 words?) but do it every day.
2. Write even when the mood isn’t right. You can’t tell if what you’re writing is good or bad while you’re writing it.
3. Write when the book sucks and it isn’t going anywhere. Just keep writing. It doesn’t suck. Your conscious is having a panic attack because it doesn’t believe your subconscious knows what it’s doing.
4. Stop in the middle of a sentence, leaving a rough edge for you to start from the next day - that way, you can write three or five words without being “creative” and before you know it, you’re writing.
5. Write even when the world is chaotic. You don’t need a cigarette, silence, music, a comfortable chair, or inner peace to write. You just need ten minutes and a writing implement.
One from Bill Wasik: This is a basic piece of advice, but it can’t be overstated when you’re trying to go from magazine-length to book-length writing: hone your outline and then cling to it as a lifeline. You can adjust it in mid-stream, but don’t try to just write your way into a better structure: think about the right structure and then write to it. Your outline will get you through those periods when you can’t possibly imagining ever finishing the damn thing - at those times, your outline will let you see it as a sequence of manageable 1,000 word sections.
Two from August Kleinzahler: 1. I find it helpful sometimes - and still to my surprise - trying to explain to someone what it is I’m trying to write about, usually someone bright but in a different intellectual zone, and not a writer. Or, likewise, in a letter or email to such a person; 2. When my self-disgust reaches critical mass I seem to be ready to go.
One from Barry Boyce: You’re better off than you think, because you’ve done this before, just not in as large a format. Almost every technique and skill you’ve used to structure and tell a story at feature length scales to book length. So, let go of the excess anxiety about never having done this before.
Two from Paula Span: 1. You already know what you need to know to do this. The fact is, my 60,000-plus-word book was pretty much like writing 8 to 10 long-form pieces. I didn’t do it differently, in terms of research or writing or rewriting. My existing skills were perfectly adequate to the task; yours will be too. It took me 2.5 years but then, I was teaching and freelancing at the same time; had I focused solely on the book, it probably would’ve taken 18 months. So you will make your deadline, even if your book is longer and more complex.
2. Unhelpful, right? But maybe not. Bottom line, this is not some whole different sphere for which you are ill-prepared. For better or worse, whether you use some nifty software to organize your material or you use a whole bunch of yellow legal pads and photocopies in hanging files (like me - so retro), this is familiar territory and you are an old hand. So get to it.
A few from Sylvia Boorstein:
When I settle into writing, i.e. proposal signed, accepted, etc., I… Do not open email until 5PM on any weekday or other day when i expect to be writing much of the day.
2. Do not read other people’s work on the same subject. That might be hard for you, since you are collecting research data, but I say very little about what other people have said or thought. They’ve already said or thought it.
3. I am VERY selective about having other people read it as I go along other than my editor, and that only when I have enough written to feel secure that I have found my voice.
4. When I do not like how what I’m writing is sounding, I quit. I leave the computer. I do something else, like cook soup. I “hear” what I am about to type before I type it and if it is not sounding like me naturally talking, I know i am not clear or balanced enough to go on.
5. I do not write from the beginning to the end. I write in the order that particular parts take form in my mind and I enjoy mulling them over… I mull and mull and imagine I am explaining them to someone and then I write them down. I have the order in mind, so I write whatever part is bubbling energetically in my mind, print it out (always) and begin a stack on THE BOOK on a corner of my desk into which I can add pieces (in their proper order) as they get written and so I have a visible proof at all times that something is happening.
6. I take the due date for the first draft EXTREMEly seriously., like everything depends on that day. it makes the project energetically alive for me, like a James Bond five-minutes-and-fifty-two-seconds until the whole world blows up movie and even if the draft is finished a week early I push the SEND button just after 12AM on the day it is due. Theatrical, I know, but I learned it from a friend of mine whom I admire as being a fine writer who prides himself on doing that.
One from John Tarrant: Ideas don’t come from anywhere identifiable, so I’ve come to trust that they will be given. This is along the lines of not whipping the donkey.
One from Seth Mnookin: I tried, not always successfully, to start each day with some discrete goal I wanted to accomplish: write 200 words, or get through a certain amount of research, or conduct two interviews, or whatever. If I set out to spend a day “writing,” that would be so overwhelming I’d end up just farting around online all day instead of starting the climb the mountain.
Two words that I don't think anyone can argue with: depression sucks. The worst part is the psychopharmacology of it, wherein the antidepressants exacerbate the ADHD, so it takes more Adderall to be less-depressed AND not predisposed to staring off at the ceiling over the kitchen table and being surprised that the lamp is there. Also, tumblr. Fucking tumblr. It caters to my love of instant gratification way too much to be allowed, which goes without saying that my typical reaction to it goes something like, "SHINY SHINY SHINY SHINY OOOO MORE SHINY." (This, says Jake, friend from high school, is why he always pegged my Animagus form or Cat-girl/Little Bit Beastly-style therianthrope form as a raccoon. Warning, one of those links goes to TV Tropes.)
Also, standard complaints about RL: my parents both need therapy but won't get it; my friends being depressed as well sucks most royally; pretending to be a family is mentally exhausting; I want it to be August so they can just scuttle off to Africa for two weeks already, because we need a massive break from each other; my "shit to write" list is, like, five miles long or something (approximately); but... on the other hand, Glenn Beck finally got his TV show taken away, so there's possibly some kind of justice in the universe. I'm being a hypocrite, taking pleasure in his misfortune after I spent most of the weekend either seeing plays or whining about how Chord Overstreet might be getting a reduced role on Glee and how some fans of the show who went, "eh, fuck Chord, I'm glad he's leaving" were dicks … but on the other hand, it's Glenn Beck. He's enough of a douchebag that some retribution is more than a little deserved, at this point.
Also, fuck summer. No, seriously. Fuck it. It's been in the high 80s/low 90s and muggy for a week. Fuck. summer.