X is for XFactor - the Magic Ingredient

I listened to Adele in concert over Christmas.  Wow, what an amazing voice she has - and still so young.  It's sickening how talented she is.  

I was so inspired I went onto her website out of curiosity.  She's had to cancel some concerts recently due to vocal strain.  I checked out the list of venues - my word, practically every day she was scheduled to perform in a different city in the UK and USA.  Adele may be incredibly talented but she also works hard.  

I wish I was as naturally gifted as Adele is.  But I'm not, and there's no point in fretting about it.  What I can do is work as hard as she does.  Stephen King says he writes 2000 words a day, every day, including Christmas and birthdays.  I don't, and my output reflects that.  Regardless of how talented you may or may not be, if you don't put in the time, you won't get far. 

So my tips to getting the writing X factor would always start with putting the time in.  Then I'd add:

 

- learning about writing through reading.  

- matching your voice to the right form.

- being persistent.

- keeping the faith

- being patient.  

To be honest, even if you're as super-talented as Adele is, unless you have the other elements it won't make any difference how talented you are.  Becoming a writer is all about a package of factors, and not just one arbitrary element called talent. 

G is for Generosity

One of my favourite quotes comes from Peggy Ramsay, legendary theatrical agent for - among many other playwrights - Joe Orton and Harold Pinter. She said,

"If you believe you have talent, be generous with it."

I like that quote. I believe I have talent, and I try to be generous with it. Instead of anally hanging on to work that's below par I believe that I not only can do better, I will do better. Cut cut cut. And then I re-write, and the re-write is always better. Being generous with your writing works.

I'm generous with myself, and don't beat myself up if I have a day when I'm not working. I allow time to recharge the batteries. I'd rather have a novel that took a long time but was as good as I could make it, than churning out one just because I knew it would be accepted for publication at something less than my personal standard. It has to be said that this isn't a good policy with publishers, who would like authors to produce novels to a regular schedule, but I believe that in the long term quality will win over quantity.

I also try to be generous with other writers. Quite a few people have expressed amazement that I give away the information in the blog for free. I accept that it may be total madness in this money grabbing world of ours, but there it is. And I try to be generous with helping others on the path to publication. The only time I've had a real fight with another writer was when one took me to task for helping more writers get published - increasing the competition, she called it. Grrr. How can it possibly increase my competition? No one else in the world can write a Sarah Duncan novel.

I don't believe I have limitless talent - if anything, I'm afraid that my talent is a small and rather weedy thing - but I do believe that it is there. So I try to be generous with it, to my writing, to myself, to others. After all, if it's good enough for Pinter, it's good enough for me.

You need More than Talent to Succeed as a Writer

We assume that talent, or natural ability, is a given for any creative person, but as far as I can see, talent is low on the list of desirable qualities.

I'd put persistence top. Talent may get you noticed at first, but persistence keeps you going. You need persistence to write a novel full stop, and doubly so when you have a full time job doing something else. And then persistence to keep going when you have set backs.

But dogged persistence isn't enough when you're banging your head against a brick wall. You need to have the ability to adapt as well. Perhaps there's another way round that wall, a different route that could be taken. An adaptable person will try many ways to achieve their ends.

Along with persistence and adaptability, I'd cite willingness to learn. From classes, from reading, from other writers, from feedback - it doesn't matter where the information is coming from, but a writer needs to be open to all learning opportunities.

But not necessarily to take on board every scrap of feedback, because a writer also needs to have self-belief and the confidence to reject feedback if they think it is wrong. Self-belief and confidence also provide the fuel for persistence and openness.

So, can you teach talent? No more than you can teach persistence, or adaptability, or openness, or confidence. But surely these qualities are innate in all of us. If we're lucky our childhoods will have equipped us with these qualities. If we're unlucky then we have to do what we can to develop what we've got. Can you teach these qualities? No. Can you nurture them? Yes.

Discover the best ways that nurture your writing qualities - it might be a support group, it might be a writing class, it might be uninterrupted writing time away from home, it might be all (or none) of them. Discover what works for you. And then do it.

Naturally Talented?

I saw one of my fellow students from my MA yesterday. At first I didn't recognise her - it's been ten years and we weren't particularly close. But I could remember her writing, how confident it was, how polished. I could remember how impressed I was when she shared her work in class, how much I envied her talent, and how far behind I knew my work was compared to hers.

I had similar feelings with the first creative writing class I went to. One student shone, her work far better than any one else's. I struggled with the exercises, especially free writing - there's something about being told to write now this minute that freezes my brain - but this student was brilliant. The words flowed, her imagination apparently boundless, flair and intelligence combined into delightful prose.

And yet, and yet. And yet I am published, and they aren't. I remember my fellow MA student, how she announced that she'd finish her novel if an agent or publisher was interested, but wouldn't waste her time otherwise. I remember the student I was so overawed by, and know that she - despite interested enquiries from agents and publishers - refused point blank to even consider changing a single word of her novel.

I remember them, and realise that sheer natural talent on its own isn't enough to make a writer. A whole raft of abilities are needed and close to the top of the list are the ability to finish work, and the ability to work with others. Which I find pretty comforting, to be honest, because those are things we can learn to do.

Is Talent Enough?

I didn't watch Britain's Got Talent until a friend emailed me with a YouTube link saying, you've got to watch this.  So I obediently did and, like millions of people, saw Susan Boyle's first audition.  I was, again like millions of people, totally captivated by it.  She has indisputably got talent.  

Her appearance on the programme has meant that her voice has been heard around the world, but she wasn't a complete unknown when she appeared.  She had sung locally, even cut a couple of discs, but her personality wasn't such that she could maximise on that.  Even with the support of Simon Cowell's team, it was touch and go if she could go further than the programme.  

Talent isn't enough.  Talent is required, of course, but you need more.  You need to be able to capitalise on your lucky breaks, and you need to be able to create them for yourself.  As Jimmy Durante is supposed to have said, the harder I work, the luckier I get.  When I was at drama school, the most talented students weren't necessarily the ones who got work on leaving.  It was a combination of factors: making contacts, following up opportunities, keeping aware of the industry and where the work was.  

Same with writing.  If you want to be published you have to develop a range of skills on top of the talent that you have.  If life was fair the brilliantly talented would get the rewards they deserved, but life isn't like that.  Which, speaking as a non-brilliantly talented person, is a jolly good thing!  Make the most of what you have, and don't worry about what anybody else is doing.

Naturally Talented?

I saw one of my fellow students from my MA yesterday. At first I didn't recognise her - it's been ten years and we weren't particularly close. But I could remember her writing, how confident it was, how polished. I could remember how impressed I was when she shared her work in class, how much I envied her talent, and how far behind I knew my work was compared to hers.

I had similar feelings with the first creative writing class I went to. One student shone, her work far better than any one else's. I struggled with the exercises, especially free writing - there's something about being told to write now this minute that freezes my brain - but this student was brilliant. The words flowed, her imagination apparently boundless, flair and intelligence combined into delightful prose.

And yet, and yet. And yet I am published, and they aren't. I remember my fellow MA student, how she announced that she'd finish her novel if an agent or publisher was interested, but wouldn't waste her time otherwise. I remember the student I was so overawed by, and know that she - despite interested enquiries from agents and publishers - refused point blank to even consider changing a single word of her novel.

I remember them, and realise that sheer natural talent on its own isn't enough to make a writer. A whole raft of abilities are needed and close to the top of the list are the ability to finish work, and the ability to work with others. Which I find pretty comforting, to be honest, because those are things we can learn to do.