How To Intimidate A Writer

Alexander McCall Smith gets up at 5.00am every morning and writes 3,000 words until about 8.00am.  Stephen King writes 2,000 words every day without fail, Christmas and birthdays included.  John Mortimer wrote 1000 words a day before doing a full days work as a barrister.  Agatha Christie wrote two novels a year, every year.  So does Joyce Carol Oates, who also wonders what writers who struggle to complete one novel a year are doing with their lives. Georges Simenon once wrote a Maigret novel in eight days flat (admittedly, accompanied with plenty of Benzedrine).

Feeling intimidated yet?  Feeling guilty?  Unworthy?  Lazy?  Untalented?  

Yup.  Lots of writers work to a strict timetable.  Lots of writers have a daily target that they meet come hell or high water.  Lots of writers do it - but it doesn't mean that ALL writers have to do the same.  Nor does it mean that your work will be inferior if you only produce 200 words a day (that was Graham Greene's target BTW).  

Your circumstances may be different from, say Anthony Trollope who wrote 2000 words before going to his day job running the Post Office for the government.  He ordered his valet to wake him up and make sure he got up and started writing, regardless of what AT said at the time.  

Don't know about you, but I don't have a valet.  If there's getting up early to be done, it's going to happen by will power alone.  Sometimes it works - and sometimes it doesn't.  I try to get 1000 words done most days, and hope for nearer 2000.  When I'm on a writing retreat I can manage 3,500-4,000 words a day, because I've excluded everything else in my life.  

Word counts and targets are good, but they have to be your own, not ones you've taken from someone else.  Don't be intimidated because you know a prolific writer - maybe they will need to do a lot of re-writing to bring their splurge of words to the level you write at on your first draft.  You've got to remember you're not in competition with anyone else.  Just keep writing at a steady pace until you're done.  

What Border Collies have to do with Writing

I really miss my Border Collie, Tan.  Sometimes, when I'm leaving the sitting room, I think I hear his paws scrabbling on the wooden floors as he gets up to keep me company or hear the thump thump of his tail wagging in the mornings.  I miss him.  

I have mixed feelings about the daily long walk he needed though, which was an added commitment to an already full day.  However, it had to be done so I did it - and got fit in the process. 

Writing a novel is like having to walk the dog.  It should be done every day, for at least an hour, more if possible.  Some days, the dog has to make do with a quick scoot round the block, but you try to make it up with an extra long walk the following day.  

Novels don't have the same big brown eyed appeal that a dog has so it's easier to ignore them, but unless you do a bit every day - and the bit might only last 10 minutes - you lose touch with the work.  

Walk every day, and become fit.  Write every day, and get a novel written.  

Competing in the Writing Olympics

Several of the Olympic teams are training at the university sports centre here in Bath. I've been going for my lunchtime swim and marvelling at the speed of the swimmers in lanes 5-8 compared to those in 1-4 (especially 1 - the slow lane, where I pootle up and down for 30 minutes). They swim fast!

Yesterday I asked the life guard exactly which team it was in training. 'It's the swimming club' she said.
'Not the Olympic team? Not the British team? Not the county team, not even the university team?' I said, clinging to my hopes that I was sharing the same chlorine as an elite athlete.
She smiled at my ignorance. 'The elite athletes come in at 5am for training, then again in the evening. They do about 4-5 hours a day in the pool, and then land-based training on top.'

Which explains in part why I'll never be much of a swimmer. 30 minutes is one thing, 4-5 hours is quite another, especially at 5 in the morning.

On the other hand, it perhaps explains why I'm a writer. Make that 4-5 hours a day of writing, and reading on top, and I'm definitely at the Olympic writing level of training. I suspect that if you want to compete on a serious level at anything - local politics, cake decoration, dog breeding - you have to consistently put the hours in.

But if it's your passion, then you don't mind the hours spent on it. You find the time. You squeeze every minute you can to write in. When not able to write, you think about writing. When relaxing, you read a book and part of you works out what the author has done and why. If you want to write at a consistent publishable level then you have to put those hours in. Simple as that.

And the great thing about writing is that it's available at all levels. Paddling up and down the pool a couple of times a week won't win me any races, but writing a little every now and then might well produce a story that will win a competition or get published in a magazine. And it will be fun and interesting along the way. Going to a weekly writing class or critique group or even taking an MA won't guarantee a publishing contract, but it's a first step along the way.

Write a little, write a lot - the Writing Olympics are open to every one. The only thing it won't do is help you lose weight and get fit but then, you can't have everything.

Don't Give Up, Keep On Going

A few years back I went to a reunion of my writing group. We'd all done the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa together, and eight of us had continued meeting and critiquing work. But one by one, four had dropped out. So there we were, four actively writing, four not.

Of the four actively writing, two are now published. I'm one of them and was lucky enough to get a publishing deal a year after graduating. The other one had to wait nearly ten years for her publishing deal, but she's got there in the end. The third in our group has had so many near misses - representation by top agent, discussions with editors - that I'm sure the deal will be there for her. The fourth has extremely limited time to write, but is now nearing completion.

All the four who weren't writing said they missed it. They wished they hadn't stopped. They expressed sadness that their creativity wasn't being expressed. One said that she'd been at her happiest when writing...

We often hear about people like me who get published relatively quickly, and forget that for most people it takes much longer than that. They say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill, so why do we think writing a novel will be any different?

I wouldn't recommend plugging away if you really hated writing - that would be daft. But I think if you're still enjoying the process then don't be too impatient. Enjoy your writing, allow yourself time to develop your skills and above all, be happy.

The Importance of Pushing On

I heard lovely news the other day - a former students has been shortlisted in a major novel writing competition. The novel was started years ago, first in one of my novel writing classes, then in a critiquing workshop I ran. She worked away at it when possible, always refining, always developing. Some people - me! - felt she should send it out and not wait for it to be perfect (because there's no such thing as a perfect novel).

But it has to be up to the author when they feel their work is ready for sending out. Novels are the writer's precious baby, and everyone would think twice before placing their baby on the floor and inviting kicks.

And yet we have to do it if we want to be published. We have to accept that our beloved babies will probably not be appreciated by everyone that claps eyes on them. Writers have to have both a sensitive soul and the hide of a rhinoceros. The truth is that not everyone will like everything, and the best thing for us to do when we come across some negative feedback is to scoop up our baby, dust it down and move swiftly on.

And actually, rejection isn't so bad. Oh yes, it hurts at the time, but it inspires you to do better, to try harder (that is, if you don't give it all up). It teaches you to investigate what isn't working and what is, and how you can make the former bits more like the latter. I now know the novel I first sent out was simply not good enough. Rejection made me pull it to pieces, and then rebuild.

Whichever route you take, either editing more and more or risking sending it out before the novel is ready, you have to prepare for rejection at some point. But you only lose if you stop writing. Keep at it, whichever your path. Push on!

If At First You Don't Succeed...

I had an call from a friend. She was drinking champagne with her publisher, the contract in front of her, waiting for her signature. In the back ground her agent was smiling as she surveyed the scene.

What's special about this scenario is that a month ago all that was in place was a manuscript. A manuscript that had been turned down several times, what's more. And one of the rejection letters from an agent had said that she thought it was unpublishable. To make it even more special, the author was on my MA course with me. For the past ten years she's hung on to her writing. Two books have been written and done the rounds but to no avail. This one, the third, has hit gold. I couldn't be more pleased for her.

What makes Person A persist when Person B gives up? I wish I knew - I'd bottle it and make my fortune! What I do know is that if you give up you have no chance of success. As the ad goes, you've got to be in it to win it.

NEW!!! I've finally got round to organising some course dates....

How to WRITE a Novel: London 3rd May/Birmingham 7th May/

Oxford 8th May/Exeter 21st May/Bath 12th June

How to SELL a Novel: London 24th May/Exeter 4th June/

Bath 3rd July Details are on my website

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.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender!

There's a lovely film called Galaxy Quest which I'm very fond of. The story is about a television programme called Galaxy Quest (which bears a similarity to Star Trek) and how aliens have been watching it from outer space, believing it all to be true. So when they're under attack from another planet, who do they want to come and help them but the crew of Galaxy Quest, who of course aren't really space crew but actors. The Galaxy Quest motto is "Never give up, never surrender!" and writers could do well to adopt it.

Writing is such a random business - sometimes it all comes together, sometimes it doesn't. Some days are good and thousands of words flow without effort, other times it's a struggle to write a paragraph or two. And then the business of being published seems random too - your manuscript lands in the right place, or it doesn't. Someone you know is scooped up in a fabulous book deal, while you have to carry on struggling. You get published and it seems to do well, but then there's a dodgy cover, the supermarkets don't buy and you're out of favour.

Let's face it, if anyone knew what really worked we'd see an endless stream of profitable books selling exactly their print run and yet books fail left right and centre, while others come from nowhere to glory at the top of the bestseller lists. I think the only thing you can do is hold on to why you're writing in the first place. Although I make my living from writing there are other things I could do (I think) that would probably be more profitable and certainly more secure. I write because I like it! I like telling stories, and there are things I want to say. I like the process of writing a novel, solving problems and making it work as a whole. I like my imaginary characters, I like living in a different world, I like it when I'm searching for a solution and suddenly realise I've already set it up.

You have to hang on to why you're doing it in the first place and not get sidetracked by the business side of writing. Write because it makes you happy, and don't worry about where you'll end up. No one can read the future, so don't bother about it. Keep on with the writing so long as you enjoy it, and try not to be influenced by the market. Never give up, never surrender!

5 Characteristics: Persistence

Persistence manifests itself in different ways. I know of two writers who got published with novel No 7. I also know that I would never have persisted that far. My form of persistence meant I was prepared to write and re-write repeatedly until I ended up with a publishing deal.

I persisted because...

a) I'd told myself that if I didn't write a novel in my MA year then I obviously didn't really want to write enough and should give it up. I have to admit that I got through all the taught modules of the MA without writing a word of my novel, only starting it in the last weeks of the course.

b) I'd got enough money to last two years. After that, it was the check out at Sainsburys. The thought of the checkout motivated me to write when I didn't feel like it, and to keep re-writing. I got my deal 1 year 11 months later.

c) I 100% believed that I was going to get published. I'm not sure how or why I believed that - there was no evidence back it up - but I did. It helped.

d) I was told it was very difficult to get published, which just made me even more determined to succeed.

Apart from a few lucky or well connected people, most writers have to persist to get published, and sometimes persist when all sane people would have given up and done something else. I don't know how you can make yourself keep on in the face of rejection, I just know it has to be done if you want to be published.

Don't Shoot Me

Yesterday evening I met with a friend who was feeling despondent about getting published. Her novel is good and I'm sure it will find a home, but she'd only had negative responses so far. I immediately pointed out I'd just blogged about the five characteristics you needed to get published. 'Persistence!' I said. 'Keep at it. Network! Get out there.'

She still looked discouraged. She was tired from work and handling rejection on top was too much.

'You want them to give you money, not just an advance,' I carried on. 'It'll cost them money just to print, distribute and market your novel. You've got to make the effort.'

It's a testament to her nice nature that she didn't hit me at this point.

I wish I could have said something better. I wish that publishing wasn't a hard-nosed business. I wish there were publishing pixies who waved magic wands and whisked contracts out of thin air. But there aren't. It's always been a tough business and in the current climate it's even harder. But people do get picked up, you don't need special contacts beyond those you can make yourself.

Thinking about it, perhaps I should have tried this angle. Imagine you've just left college and are looking for your first job. You've got some shiny qualifications, and you know you could do the job given a chance. You apply for interviews, along with thousands of other recent graduates. Most you never hear from again or get a standard rejection from. You smarten up your presentation, get some feedback on your CV, practice your interview technique, buy a better interview suit... it's discouraging but you persist because you want to get a job. It's that simple.

Would that have been better? Probably not. When you've got over the first flush of enthusiasm about sending out I'm not sure anything anyone says is going to help. But you've got to carry on if you want to get published. Perhaps the only helpful thing to say is enjoy the journey. Make friends with people in the same position and share your triumphs and disasters. Learn as much as you can. Enjoy the writing process. Start a new novel...

Pride and Persistence

I usually start classes with a word count. In turn, everybody has to say how many words they've written since the last class. No one checks on the accuracy or otherwise of the word count, so in theory you can lie, claim to have written 11,567 words over the past week and then bask in the collective oohs and ahhs from the rest of the class, as if a firework has just exploded overhead in a shimmer of light.

But I don't think people do lie. People state their word count and if it's zero they blush, and twist their hair and contort their bodies and pull faces, just like toddlers being caught out. And the excuses! Sob stories, tales of woe, the occasional barefaced 'I didn't have time'. The rest of the class boos and throws cabbages at them. (But only metaphorically.)

But even though the boos are unheard and the cabbages are invisible, just the pressure of having to admit a zero word count to our peer group is enough to push people to write. There are quite a lot of confessions to the writing having been done the evening before, or even the morning of class - and I've even had a notebook waved filled with scribbles written as the student walked along the corridor, but hey - who cares? It's writing.

And writing is what it's about. Being proud of being a writer, and persisting with it until you get something written. You can always go back and edit later, but you need the raw material to start with. Set yourself a daily word target, proudly announce when you've achieved it and give yourself a reward. (Chocolate biscuits work for me which is why my bottom is the shape it is.)

So...how many words have you written this weekend?

Writing and the Partnered Down Dog

Yesterday evening at Pilates we finished with a Partnered Down Dog. This sounds pretty raunchy and indeed there were quite a lot of giggles and joking about it turning into a bondage session. Of course in practice we were all very serious and stretched our hamstrings out in turn, our partners providing a counter balance so the stretch increased. Walking home afterwards I realised I'd pushed my body further than I would have done on my own, and it felt good.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a writing partner who made us go that little bit further with our writing? Who said, go on, you can write a little bit more today. Or nudged us into completing the story we were struggling with. Who encouraged us to persist with that extra round of letters to agents. I think most of us could do with a writing friend like that.

If we're lucky we can find a writing partner in class, through a writing group or an on-line forum, but they can't be there for us all the time. If you seriously want to write you have to develop your own inner writing partner, a little voice that will send you to write when turning on the television would be easier, the one that never lets you get away with sending out work you deep down know isn't finished. Call it your Muse if you must, but learn to be your own best writing friend.