posted
I was looking through some old posts, and I found a rather interesting post by a member named Augustine (is he still around?). I copied it here to see what you all thought of it.
**********************
1. You must read as much as possible so that you will learn what writing all about. 2. You must write as much as possible because you need the practice. 3. You must finish every story you begin. 4. You must rewrite. 5. You must put it on the market. 6. You must keep it on the market until sold. 7. Cultivate a very thick skin so that you will survive the disappointment and frustration you will undoubtedly have to cope with.
Here are a couple of quotes I also find helpful.
ISAAC ASIMOV: “Even if a new writer is copiously talented, talent is not enough. One also has to have technique and judgment, and such things come only with experience. Writing well takes time.”
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN: “The above rules have more to do with writing than anything else that could be said. But they are amazingly hard to follow--which is why there are so few professional writers and so many aspirants, and which is why I am not afraid to give away the racket!”
STEPHEN KING: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no other way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut. If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or tools) to write. Simple as that. Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life. The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one’s papers and identification pretty much in order. Constant reading will pull you into a place (a mind-set, if you like the phrase) where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness.”
JOHN D. MacDONALD (in his Introduction to King's Night Shift): "Stephen King always wanted to write and he writes. So he wrote Carrie and Salem's Lot and The Shinning, and the good short stories you can read in this book, and a stupendous number of other stories and books and fragments and poems and essays and other unclassifiable things, most of them too wretched to ever publish. Because that is the way [writing] is done."
**********************
These sound comprehensive to me. What do you think?
posted
I agree with Shawn about #3. No matter how skilled or accomplished you are, EVERYONE is capable of writing shit. It’s just part of being a writer.
posted
While I like the idea of #3, it doesn’t seem very realistic. At least in their original form, some stories lay there like a dead fish. Even a healthy dose of rewrite isn’t going to save them enough to make it conceivable to do #5 and #6.
I can’t imagine wanting to write if you didn’t love to read. And once you start writing, reading becomes an even more gloriously fleshed out experience – you’re more aware of the nuisances because you know what it means to put them there.
posted
Actually, I don’t think you have to do any of them, depending on what kind of writer you want to be.
For instance, I don’t write “as much as possible.” I hardly write at all. (Once I read someone give an aspiring writer the advice to write about 30,000 words of a novel to see if it would go anywhere. 30,000 words is about 5 years worth of my writing!) However, I have sold a few stories, so I’m not that bad.
If you want to be an amateur writer, you don’t need to do any of them.
But if you want to be a professional writer, you must do #5-7.
And if you want to be the best writer you can be, then you must do #1-4.
But if you sit down and write something, then you are a writer. Everything else is gravy.
posted
I can understand the principle behind #3. Forcing yourself to finish every story you start would be a good way of training your mind to make stories (for instance, if you write yourself into a corner, force yourself to escape). And it's wringing words from your fingers, and every word is training.
I don't do it, of course, but that's because I'm imperfect *grin*
#6, if anything, seems like the wrong one. Some stories don't sell.
posted
The rules that I remember from Heinlien were slightly different. - though they boil down to much of the same.
The problem with the idea of reading everything, is that there truly is a lot of writing that is published and never should have been.
One of my favorite authors (romance/mystery genre) started writing because she got so discusted with what was being printed, and felt she could do better than that. I agree with her feelings. There are plenty of books that I start that I can't get past page 10 because... well, they are just that bad.
Actually, there is one author that I read - who really is terrible - because I want to see how she applies the formula that she has set up. (admittedly, the first book I read was good, which caused me to read the second, which in turn caused me to see a serious pattern there).
One thing that my husband gets mad at me about is that I don't follow the "put it on the market, and keep it there until it sells" - admittedly, I've sold poetry, but no novels or short stories.
The idea of finishing a story is often amazingly difficult when you take into account the corner one has written onesself into, however, all that aside, sometimes pushing yourself to find a way out of that corner... or possibly turn the focus of the story on another character can only help your writing.
quote:The problem with the idea of reading everything, is that there truly is a lot of writing that is published and never should have been.
Isn't that the whole point though. If someone got some utter tripe out in print, you can learn from thier mistakes, and take heart from the fact that: a) a (porbably) good auther wrote something bad b) it got published.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
