Q&A on Writing
January 14th, 2010
Writing
From reddit IAmA *New York Times* Bestselling Novelist thanks to keyist
How long did it take to get your first book published? At what point (if ever) did you quit a day job to pursue novel writing full time?
Took me ten-plus years, which is pretty typical. There’s a saying in this business: “It takes ten years to become an overnight success.” I quit my day job about the time my second novel came out.
IAmA NYT novelist as well — good for you, I have the same career track, only it took me about 15 years to reach true success. I’ve got 30+ books out and I still haven’t managed to quit my day job. That insurance coverage is powerfully addictive stuff.
Almost every successful musician, author and actor that I know(and I know more than a few) has been at it for ~10 years at the bare minimum, with ~15 being more common. It is perhaps one of the hardest things for young artists to grasp that success takes a long time and along the way you might not have any reassurance that you’re even on the right track. Just gotta keep at it, keep getting better and do what is best for your work.
How do you write? I suck at writing. For example, say that I’m trying to write about winter. I’d write: “The weather is cold and the ground is covered with snow”. Exciting, huh? How do you get the creative juice flowing? What’s the process of writing a single good sentence like? Do you write whatever’s on your mind first, then come back to revise each sentence? In contrary, do you give a lot of thought on each sentence before writing it? I want to know how to write, but for the life of me I just can’t.
Everything you need to excel in fiction-writing can be learned. Except for loving it. If you don’t love it, you probably won’t succeed. As for books to improve your mechanics, I’d recommend Gary Provost. He’s got a number of How-To books on the subject.
Creative juices: It’s like anything else. The more you practice creativity, writing, plotting, etc., the better you’ll get at it. Later, I’ll be posting some brainstorming tools that have helped me.
Because I’m always on a deadline, I now edit as I write, but that’s a skill that took many, many years to develop. The best way to do it is get everything down on paper without worrying about how it sounds, or looks, or whether you’ve misused a semi-colon, then go back and re-write. Writing is rewriting.
You can do it. It just takes dedication and a willingness to suck at it until you don’t suck at it anymore.
~
I really like this found here:
Chekhov was, by profession, a doctor. He also became one of the best drama and prose writers ever (in the west, he’s best known for plays, but his prose is brilliant, too).
About having two professions, he said “Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other.” Anyway, I guess I’d say you should do both. If your writing takes off and you get famous, you can quit your day job.
The other option, I’d say, is to become a high school English teacher or an English professor. That way you’d have all summer to write. But trust me, poverty sucks and it really sucks to have debt collectors calling you; and it sucks when you start trying to time which bills you pay because you can’t pay them all. It double sucks when you have a family.
