Reply to Have you ever written a book? How and why?

Forum Index » Entertainment and Pop Culture

Reply to "Have you ever written a book? How and why?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Years ago, I really loved writing.  I wrote a lot of short stories and essays and mostly false starts.  As I have gotten older, my responsibilities and work have really worn me down so that I don't really do any of my hobbies, much less something as time consuming as writing.  My dream is to write a book one day (or even just a published short story or essay).  If you have written a novel or any kind of book, how did you do it?  Were you able to do it part time or is your career writing?

TIA![/quote]

My career is writing – I'm a novelist. Yes, I earn a living wage from it. Published by one of the NY houses. (Self-publishing seems like so much more work! Hats off to anyone who chooses that path.)

You seem to be looking for advice, but I don't really have any magic counsel to give. There is no real secret to it but work. All books are written the same way: one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time, one page at a time. If you commit to writing a page every day for the next year, you will have a novel-length manuscript by the end of it.

Actually, I do have some advice, though I am terrible at following it: write forward and do not revise as you go. Only revise once you have finished the draft. Annie Lamott has a wonderful take on this approach, which you can find if you google "shitty first drafts." This is also the approach espoused by happiest, healthiest, least neurotic novelists I know. And then there are the rest of us...  :roll:

Finally --  if you aren't a voracious reader, chances are you won't be a very good writer. That truth holds true in nearly every instance I can recall.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics