Writing Craft

Writing Advice from Anne Lamott

I love this piece by Anne Lamott. She encapsulates the simple challenge of writing and makes it sound effortless.

Of course, it’s not.

Lamott entreats us to ignore all the reasons and excuses and procrastinatory habits stepping in the way of our intention to write.

Unless you make a conscious choice to make writing part of your regular practice, you won’t get it done. Just like tomorrow never comes.

Decide and act. It’s the only way.

“… find a desk or a table where you promise yourself, as a debt of honour, to write one page or passage or for one hour a day. (Well, let’s say five days a week.) You start somewhere, anywhere. It doesn’t matter where, because it will almost certainly go badly. It is supposed to. But maybe you can describe, badly, the place where your book takes place.

Close your eyes and see if there is a movie playing on the black screens behind your eyes. Then scribble down the details of this movie, all the colours and foliage or furnishing.

Maybe you can see one of your character’s faces: how she tucks her head when she enters a room, like a shy duck; or how he takes on the persona of a bank president, arrogant and amused and yet pretending to care, even at meetings with his child’s homeroom teacher.

Maybe you can see his child’s face — the pride she takes in her father’s potency, or the shame.

So describe that to us on paper, in words and images, imperfectly.

That’s all. One small moment, face, locale, conversation at a time …”

It doesn’t have to be a coherent piece. It doesn’t have to be linear construction of a story. It doesn’t have to be your best writing. Just write. Fix it later.

Check in with yourself right now.
– do you set aside a specific time to write?
– do you decide ahead where you will write?
– do you give yourself at least a half-hour a day to write?
– do you have an idea or a prompt to kick you into writing?
– do you really want to write or just dream about it?

No-one can do your writing for you.

Sure you can get a ghostwriter, but that’s not YOU writing and taking the pride and satisfaction of having penned your story.

Read the original advice from Anne Lamott here.

Then, go write.

Struggling to write? Get hold of Anne Lamott’s famous guide for writers, Bird by Bird. The 25th anniversary edition is out and it’s just as helpful for writers as it was when it first came out. An easy read, it will take you through starting, rotten drafts, plotting and so much more. Check it out here.

[post photo credit, Jonny Goldstein, Flickr]

Writing Advice from Kayte Nunn

Writing advice is everywhere: good writing advice from people who have actually been in the trenches is the kind you want to pay attention to. I first came across Kayte Dunn as a presenter at the 2019 Byron Bay Writers Festival. Kayte ran a half-day workshop targeted at commercial and historical fiction – areas of interest for me. Wouldn’t you know it? I had another event on the day so couldn’t go.

Researching Kayte Dunn, as you do when you want to check out a presenters street cred, I came across her writing advice digested into 12 writing tips for any writer.

These points may not be new but you have to ask, are you doing them?

Here they are …

“A BAKER’S DOZEN

When I first started writing fiction, I searched exhaustively for writing advice and found plenty that was useful. Here are a few of the things I’ve learned.

It goes without saying that if you want to become a writer then you need to be a reader. But read critically, rather than just letting the words flow over you. Try and figure out what makes some books work and others not. Study your favourite writers, how they begin chapters, how they end them, how they create characters, include detail, their use of language, how they raise the tension to keep you turning the page. Read poetry – it’s wonderful for giving you a sense of the rhythm of language, and the precise use of words.
Make notes – especially when you wake up in the night with a great idea or line of dialogue or character. Trust me, you’ll never remember it in the morning.
Back up. Every. Single. Day. If you fight as hard for your words as I have to, then you’ll never want to lose them.
Pay attention – to what’s going on around you, how people speak, to language, to slang, to what you are reading, to the little details of a person’s appearance, to the landscape. Think about how you’d write about these things.
Set yourself goals, break them down into manageable chunks and then do your darnedest to stick to them.
Try and write regularly, even an hour a day adds up.
Be a storyteller, not just a writer. Storytelling is an art, but it can be learned. It’s like opening up the back of a watch and seeing how it all works. Read a few books on creative writing, take a workshop or a course run by a writer you admire, practice your craft. A couple of books that were recommended to me and were particularly helpful were Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’, Donald Maass’ ‘Writing the Breakout Novel’, and ‘Immediate Fiction’ by Jerry Cleaver.
If the thought of writing a novel is too overwhelming, start with short stories. They’ll help you learn to be a better writer.
Have courage and ignore the tiny voice in your head telling you it’s not worth it, or your writing is terrible, or it’s all too hard.
Don’t be in too much of a rush to submit your work to agents and publishers – writing takes time and constant application, and the first draft is just the beginning.
Do it, don’t just think about it or talk about it. Just start, even if you don’t quite know where you are going.
Write the book you are dying to read.
Try and have fun!”

The trick is not to get stuck on activities like number 7 without applying things like number 6. All the learning in the world won’t help you if you never set pen to paper (or digits to keyboard).

Perhaps the biggest battle for most emerging writers is number 9. That doubt creeps in and before you know it the devil sitting on your shoulder is telling you all kinds of reasons why you’ll never be a writer – you’re not good enough, who are you to write?, it’s all been said before – what can you possibly add?, you’re not a real writer .. and so it goes. Find a way to kick that critic to the kerb. Negativity or self-doubt won’t get your book/poem/story written. Give the critic a solid nudge and tell it to come back later once you’re done!

You want to write. Allow yourself the best opportunity to do that!

Daily Word Count- Does it Count?

My Daily Word Count

I’ve got to admit I wasn’t good at keeping to a daily word count or writing morning pages or anything that smacked of discipline.

I was one of those who waited for the Muse to take me into a creative flow. Trouble was, The Muse didn’t have my address.

As a result, my creative writing was sporadic whereas my deadline-driven writing was right on cue.

Learned wisdom, on the other hand, argues that building the writing muscle is essential if you want to produce anything. Daily word count or its equivalent is the key to achieving this. On the back of that you will now find a range of websites, apps and gurus who provide motivation to get you into the mode of a daily discipline to write 500 words, 750 words, 8 minutes a day, daily pages, and so on.

So, is this what ‘real’ writers do? Word counts? Really?

Short answer, yes.

Do Real Writers Have a Daily Word Count?

Graham Greene wrote 24 novels on top of travel books, children’s books, plays, screenplays, and short stories. 500 words was his daily writing goal target – about two pages.

“Over twenty years I have probably averaged five hundred words a day for five days a week. I can produce a novel in a year, and that allows time for revision and the correction of the typescript. I have always been very methodical, and when my quota of work is done I break off, even in the middle of a scene. Every now and then during the morning’s work I count what I have done and mark off the hundreds on my manuscript.” Graham Greene.

What about other writers and their daily word count? There are other authors who abide by a word count, but here is a sample…

Ernest Hemingway – 500
Ian McEwan – 600
Sarah Waters -1000
Sebastian Faulks – 1000
Barbara Kingsolver – 1000
Mark Twain – 1400 (in 4-5 hours)
Lee Child – 1800 words
Nicholas Sparks – 2000 (3-8 hours)
Patricia Highsmith – 2000 (4-5 hours)
Stephen King – 2000
Anne Rice – 3000 words
Michael Crichton – 10000 words!

Bear in mind, most of these writers wrote full time. Those of us who write part time need to set a target that will fit into our already busy lives but also stretch us to actually write versus talking and reading about writing.

Nicole Bianchi wrote about word counts back in 2016, the Writing Co-operative did something similar in 2017 and more recently, The Novelry had a crack at covering it. So, feel free to check those blog posts out for more information.

What To Do Next

The fundamental principle is, set yourself a minimum target – make it a daily word count, a certain number of pages, a particular period of time – and then schedule it in to a particular time each day or each week and furthermore, STICK TO IT.

Even if you write drivel, you’re still writing and developing your skill along with your dedication to your craft. Enjoy the process and reward yourself once you’ve hit target.

Finally, just don’t bag yourself if you miss – it’s a work in progress 🙂