The perfect writing method: as of yet, no one has been able
to find it, though the world would probably implode if an author ever found the
key to churning out thousands upon thousands of words crafted from pure gold
without any effort. Don’t let books like “Writing for Dummies” fool you – you
can no more learn everything there is about the writing craft from reading one
book than you can expect to become an expert in advanced physics by learning
basic arithmetic.
But, on the other hand, do we know enough DON’Ts to help
guide us towards a better collection of DOs? Sadly, yes. Any writer can give
you a long list of things that they have tried and found to be failures.
Writers are as varied as the techniques they employ, and yet the things we find
ourselves doing to our detriment are usually similar across the board. Here are
the top five that I have come across that do more damage to a writer’s
motivation and confidence than any other.
1. Expecting Perfection in the First Draft
Too often writers get blocked because they are afraid that
what they write won’t be any good. It’s an honest fear. We all want to be the
best we can be, and when we have hyper-critical views of our own skills and
talents, those can quickly get in the way of our productivity. Fear slows you
down gradually until at last you find you can’t bear to put down a single word
on the page because it will be wrong.
Wrong according to whom?
First drafts are not supposed to be perfect. They often aren’t
even that great. But if you sit around worrying about whether or not the first
draft will be publishable at the start, you won’t finish the first draft at all
– and a book that isn’t written isn’t publishable to begin with!
Blogger KRTGRPHR reminded me last week that “no one need
ever see the first draft. Or the hundredth. Or any other. The only thing that
anyone else sees is the final version.” And that’s the magic of writing. You
can revise, you can edit, you can re-write if necessary. We forget the
difficult process of writing when we read a finished product and deceive
ourselves into believing that the author responsible just poured out this
complete and polished work on their first try.
It’s just frankly not true. We all have to start with the
outline, the character bios, the unconnected ideas and plot flaws. You have to
let yourself grow through the process. As many other writers have put it, you have
to give yourself permission to suck.
Having a rough draft doesn’t make you a bad writer, it makes
you a writer. And the rough draft won’t write itself! Besides, that first
attempt at getting the words on the page is not set in stone. Even if this
story isn’t what puts you on the map as an author, you have many more stories
ahead of you that will continue to hone your skills. David Kadavy, a
best-selling technology author, points out that “If you find a way to be okay
with sucking for a short time, you’ll have a whole lifetime to enjoy not
sucking at that thing.”
Take a deep breath. Understand deep down that whatever your
write, it’s a great start! And then get on with it.
2. Writing Only When
You “Feel It”
I used to be one of those writers who felt it was
detrimental to my writing technique to force the craft. I had seen time and
again that whenever I sat down and wrote when I didn’t “feel like it”, the result
was too often very poor. I began to associate a specific state of mind with
proper writing.
No surprise that the less I wrote, the less often I felt
this dying urge to write. I blocked myself into a corner of practically never
writing at all. And the guiltier I felt about not writing, the harder it was to
bring myself to write. Like a snake eating its tail.
I found an article last week, titled “On Writing” (author
quoted above) that really hit this problem home with me. The author shared my
exact feelings and had been in the exact place that I had been festering in for
years. Describing his writing habits, he wrote, “It took an unfathomable time,
and effort, between recharges – to build up enough misery and self-loathing
because of not writing, just so I could overcome the fear and misery and
self-loathing that had prevented the writing in the first place.”
I wish I could say that this part of my life is years behind
me. But in reality, I finally broke out of this foolishness…last week.
This article reminded me that writing is horribly difficult,
and without the proper force, nigh-impossible to do. This is why many
successful authors set strict writing schedules for themselves. This is why
many writers adhere to the “Write Every Day” philosophy.
Whatever your particular diet of writing may be, it is the
same for everyone – “You have to force yourself to write. There is no other way
to do it. You could wait days, weeks, an entire decade – for that fully formed,
perfect prose to appear.”
Words that haven’t been committed to the page yet cannot be
improved upon. And believe me, the longer you go without writing, the harder it
is to get back into any significant habit at all. I finally sat down and forced
myself to write the other day, and I wrote four whole pages. I remember
thinking, Dude, woah! It had been
quite a while since I had been able to chug out that much content in one
sitting. And that’s a very small amount, in the grand scheme of things.
But the more I do it, I imagine the faster I will be. It’s
like running a marathon. You can’t get better by sitting on your couch. Just
so, you can’t write 20,000 words a day if the last major piece you wrote was a
grocery list.
3. Internalizing
Criticism
Another thing that writers can be suckered into doing is
internalizing the criticism of their work. We take it far too personally when
another person has issues with what we have written, as if the suggested
changes are actually an attack on our very selves.
I’ll just say it plainly: stop it.
First, you are not your work. You are the master of your
work. You have the power to separate yourself from your ‘baby’ and analyze it
rationally. If you are so emotionally attached to it that you can’t bear to
change a single word, then you need to step back and tackle something else for
a while. When an outside eye gives you a critique, they are not telling you
that you are a bad person or a bad writer. They are proposing a change for a
malleable, ever-growing entity. Altering a character here or a shift of phrase
there won’t lessen you as a writer. Rather, listening to others’ opinions and
judging whether or not they are useful will strengthen you.
Second, clinging to your work as if you are protecting a toddler
from the jaws of death is just unattractive. The people providing you feedback
are people, not bears. Don’t treat them like bears.
Taking critique personally can crush your motivation to
write. The writing world can be harsh, and we have to learn to survive the
storms gracefully. Put aside your gut, emotional reaction and listen to what it
being said. It will probably be useful!
4. Never Sharing Your
Work
If you are afraid of criticism, or you have a low opinion of
your writing style, you may be tempted to keep everything to yourself. Who
wants to read this stuff anyway? Unfortunately, this only breeds paranoia and
ultimately kills your writing. If you are so afraid to share your work with
even people close to you, how are you ever going to submit it for publication?
You should be sharing your writing as often as you can. You
don’t need to distribute it widely – a few people who you trust to evaluate
your work fairly will suffice. Not only will you receive constructive and
educational feedback, but also you are more likely to be praised! Everyone
needs a pat on the back for doing something well now and again. And, if you
believe that writing is an expression of ego (as many people say), you have to
admit that writers *really* need that ego boost to support the constant
expressing of our deepest selves. It’s exhausting!
If you hoard your work to yourself because you are afraid of
how bad it might be, you will never receive any comments to the contrary. The only
opinion you will have is your own, and the negativity will eventually convince
you that you should just give up.
Instead, seek out the opinion of others. Let other writers
build you up by making suggestions where you can improve and praising what you
are already doing well. Don’t hide!
5. Idolizing the
Genre
Last but not least is the anxiety that can be built up by
seeing what other writers in your genre are doing. A well-read author will always
do better by keeping up with what is current in their particular
publishing niche. What you have to try and avoid is succumbing to the idea that
you don’t belong among the ranks of published authors.
If you idolize your peers and the body of work that has come
before you, you can very easily begin to believe that you will never be that
good and can never come up with an idea original enough to compete. Why even
bother trying to write when it’s already been done before better than you could
do it, right?
Wrong. Don’t let that train of thought take over for even
one second. The easiest way to vanish among the crowd is to never enter the
crowd to begin with. You don’t know that your novel or short-story or
collection of poetry won’t revolutionize the genre until you write it and get
it published.
In other words, writers, don’t defeat yourself before you’ve
even begun! As always, keep reading, keep writing. Leave me a comment or an
email – what motivation killers have you struggled with before, and how did you
overcome them?
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