InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Not in a life-affirming way"

Her Royal Jaeness (yayforjae) wrote,
@ 2009-03-16 15:51:00

Current mood:	thoughtful
Entry tags:	blah: writing

on writing
I was rummaging through LJ and I found Seanan's Fifty Thoughts on Writing, which has been really enlightening and thought-provoking so far. There are a lot of writers on my IJ friends list, so I thought I'd share.

She's going to compose 50 guides on writing; she's at number 24 at the moment ("Anyone who tells you that your first draft is brilliant, perfect poetry and deserves to be published just as it is and you shouldn't change a word and oh, you're going to be famous and make enough money to buy a desert island is either a) lying, b) delusional, or c) your mother.") and I'm reading number 8 ("God Made the Mosquito.").

I'm always looking for ways to improve my crappy writing, and I like the way that McGuire lays out and then develops her ideas - Her tone is friendly and helpful, like a good teacher's should be. And when she's right, she's right:

Putting fifty thousand words on paper does not make you a novelist. It means you successfully put fifty thousand words on paper. You should be proud of yourself for that, because dude, it's difficult to stick with a plot and a concept and an idea and characters for that long, and I salute you. At the same time, you're not a novelist. Sweating over those fifty thousand words until you're confident that at least forty thousand of them are good ones is what makes you a novelist. Good luck. (From You May Not Be A Novelist (and That's Okay))

Man, that was like a harpoon to my heart. When I finished my NaNo ~~novel~~ book, I was so so proud and so so convinced that I AM AUTHOR NOW! She's completely right - I just arranged 50,000 words in a non-random order. Maybe after the second draft, I'll be able to join the ranks. Or maybe after the third. Or probably never.

Can't wait to read the rest of her guides.

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baggyeyes
2009-03-23 09:38 pm UTC (link)

There's a lot of advice out there for people who want to be writers - I do know that a few of the things I came away with from University (not that I'm a good example) is that they hammered in to write write write. And read read read.

Strangely, I've found that fanfiction has helped my writing. I find my dialogue is better, and my sense of a setting is a bit better than it used to be.

I wish I knew THE book I could recommend. But there's so many good authors out there with such good story telling skills.

One book that blew me away as far as the way he told the story, was "The Things They Carried" by Tim O' Brien. Such spare language, and raw detail.

You could also try writing exercises where you take on a theme. There was one my teacher assigned where we each had to take a story out of the newspaper and construct a fictional story out of a piece.

And don't be hard on yourself. Each piece is a step.

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yayforjae
2009-03-25 09:25 pm UTC (link)

Strangely, I've found that fanfiction has helped my writing. I find my dialogue is better, and my sense of a setting is a bit better than it used to be.

THIS. I completely agree. Not only is it great practice, but I think having a community of other people writing about the same topic is incredibly helpful - Not only can they point out grammar, syntax, and plot problems, but because we're in the same fandom, they can tell if something is out of character.

I'll definitely check out that book! Thanks for the rec - I'm always looking for more advice. As far as the theme assignment goes, I think I'm actually do something similar over at LJ with fanfic100. Prompts are a great way get the juices flowing.

I am happy with the progress I've made, but there's so much room for improvement! Blargggggggggggggggg

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