This blog will come to an end soon. So, if the remainder of it sounds like a collection of odd topics rather than a continuing theme, that is probably because it is. I have been on a journey (I hate that phrase) for the last three years to improve my writing skills and become more familiar with independent publishing. I think I have made good progress. Although there is still much to learn, I feel that I am turning the corner from discovery to practice which will make you as nearly perfect as you are capable of being. I will pick up this thread later. However, for now I wanted to revisit a topic I first posted about very early in the life of this blog and delve more deeply into the assertion that there is a lot more to writing than just writing. I referred to the cliche fantasy that many people (writers and non-writers as well) have in which somebody types the first line "It was a dark and stormy night" and then continues, without any hindrances, to write the great American novel.
Anyone who can type or form legible
letters with a pen and knows enough to put those letters together to form words
can be said to be writing. But does that make them a writer? Probably
not. This would be equivalent to someone pecking out chopsticks on a piano and
then attempting to say they are a musician.
What if our friend with the pen or typewriter can form sentences from those
words which are intelligible to another person. Are they a writer now? Again,
probably not. That would be like our friend on the piano following up
chopsticks with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and trying to claim musician
status at that point.
And we could go on. Being a musician requires precision, timing, nuance,
interpretation, breadth of musical instruments, and a broad background in
music. The Beatles, who are generally recognized as excellent musicians could
not read music. But George Martin could. And one can reasonably wonder if the
Beatles would have reached the levels they reached without George Martin. One
can reasonably wonder the same about Brian Epstein and his skills in business
and promotion. The point is that being a successful musician requires a whole
range of skills sometimes found in a single individual, sometimes in a group.
To be fair, we have to admit that nobody excels at all the skills needed to be
a successful musician. But you do have to excel at enough of them to stick out
from the crowd. Or you have to have a team made up of the right people with the
right skills.
Being a successful writer also requires one to excel in a number of areas. You
need to be familiar with what other writers have said and done. You need to be
able to create compelling phrases and design compelling stories or arguments.
You need to find your voice and your audience. Sometimes writers rely on
editors, business managers or friends who read chapters or comment on ideas.
Sometimes, they will turn what they have written over to a team at a publishing
house who will compensate for what they do not know.
There is a tired old joke about a guy who calls a mechanic because his car
won't start. The mechanic looks at the engine, tinkers with a few things and
then pulls a hammer out of his tool kit which he used to smack something in the
engine. The car owner tries to start the car and the engine roars to life. Then
the mechanic hands the car owner a bill for $100. The owner is shocked by the
bill and protests that all the mechanic did was hit the engine with a hammer.
The mechanic points out, in his defense, that the $100 was not for the hammer
strike but was for knowing where to strike. Yes, this is a really stupid old
joke but it highlights the fact that when somebody is successful at something
it may lead onlookers to believe that anyone could have done it, when, in
reality, it was the product of a lot of background work and practice some of
which may not appear related to the successful act at all.
When somebody shows up at a bookstore for a book signing, that book is the
product of a lot of activities that may not appear to have anything to do with
writing. These activities include, but are not limited to reading,
studying, writing practice, thinking, experiences, arguments with friends and
all manner of efforts to develop your creativity and imagination. If you are an
independent writer, then everything falls into your lap including formatting, graphics,
and marketing. If you have ever had the experience of coaxing a wound-up
toddler into taking a nap, you have a tiny glimpse of what this process is
like.
I attended a workshop, years ago, in which the instructor was asked about writer's block and what to do about it. Even though it was actually decades ago I still remember her response. "If you have writers block," she pointed out "then you don't have anything to write and you need to go back to your preparations such as reading, thinking, being imaginative, writing something shorter, and so on." If you have writer's block, then you don't have anything to write. Brilliant! There is a huge amount of preparation necessary to bring you to the point where words start to flow. And failing to do the work leads to writer's block. Sometimes the preparation includes things like not thinking about what you are trying to write or engaging in activities that you don't normally do to jog your thinking.
We can think of writing as having three stages. One is all the preparation that you have to do to get the words to start flowing. The next is the stage where you let the words flow and try to get them on paper. And the third is all the work necessary to get what you have written into the hands of people who want to read it. I am reluctant to put numbers on this so I would say that the vast majority of the time goes into stages one and two. This means that the bulk of the time when somebody is doing the work needed to be a writer that will not be actually writing at all.
Going back to the common fantasy, it is possible that someone was born with a gift for writing which was then developed in school. Then they had a collection of life experiences which coalesced into a story that other people would like to read or hear. So, after procrastinating for an acceptable period of time, they sit down at their computer and start writing. The word flow and the experience is unbounded ecstasy. After combing over a few drafts, they send it to an agent who loves it. The agent sends it to a publisher who agrees to publish it and it becomes a best seller.
Does this ever happen? It probably does but it is extremely unlikely. People become millionaires by buying sweepstakes tickets. And making your fortune by winning the sweepstakes is not what I would call a solid career plan. You might get lucky once but the odds of getting lucky twice are (extremely unlikely) squared. So, if you are planning on being a writer and spending your life writing, you should probably come up with a better plan.
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