Right at the Beginning
Everything has to start somewhere.
One of the big questions that always gets asked of authors is ‘when did you decide to be a writer?’
As I kid I went through a different dream job every week- I was going to be everything from a dancer to a vet. I could never settle, and even up to applying to university I had no actual idea what I was doing with my life.
I had always loved writing, and I was always going to be a writer, but that never took a front seat as a child.
In part this was because of my entirely backwards idea of what it meant to be a writer. I assumed that every book was written perfectly first time, that the author just sat down and typed it out and that was that. As a complete sucker for the ‘lonely writer’ stereotype that’s always portrayed in media, I was under the delusion that learning about writing was cheating. If you couldn’t do it naturally it didn’t count, stupid, naive (very) little me thought.
My independent streak got the better of me, and I couldn’t ask for help with writing. I had to do it all myself, and so I got nowhere. Despite the need to write and publish a book, I didn’t even look at any sort of English for A-level, let alone university.
Everyone talks about what advice they’d pass on to their younger self. If I could see my younger self, I’d slap her in the face for having such a dumb-ass view.
I always wanted, needed, to write, but this stupid attitude meant that I didn’t get round to it seriously until I was 27.
So I guess my answer depends on which view you take; I’ve always wanted to write, for as long as I’ve lived. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. But I only took it seriously at 27, when the ache to do it got too bad.
The Weight of the Word- Writer
One of the most inspiring things I heard at the start of my writing career was
If you write, you are a writer.
So many courses, organisations and speakers start with this. ‘Call yourself a writer.’ ‘If you put words on paper, or type, then you’re a writer.’ And yet for a lot of us it’s a really hard thing to do, and we get such a kick out of being recognised as a writer by someone else.
By why?
How many other things do we call ourselves? Knitters, gamers, crafters, cyclist, swimmer, jogger, role-players. All of these, and so many more. We have no problem using these words to describe our hobbies or passions.
So why do we hesitate when it comes to calling ourselves writers?
And why is it the first question (or the first question we fear) is ‘have you published anything?’
If someone says they’re a cyclist, it would be ridiculous to ask ‘so when are you going to be in the Olympics?’ If someone talks about gaming or knitting, we don’t think any less of them if they don’t make money from it. Most of the time we don’t even think to ask if they do.
But every writer needs to be a best-selling novelist? Since when, cos I missed that memo.
Somewhere along the lines the word ‘writer’ got co-opted into meaning ‘career writer’. That’s why we struggle to use it. Because if you use the word, it’s assumed that you’re aiming to do it professionally. Sure some of us are (yo!), but why can’t we just accept that writing is a valid hobby as well?
The expectation that we’re doing it for money just adds extra pressure on those who do just want- or need- to write. No-one claims the title if they’re not making money, which means that the only people who are writers are professionals. Therefore if you call yourself a writer, you’re a professional, and round and round the vicious cycle goes…
So claim it back. As writers, we of all people know the power of words. The validity, the sense of achievement, the sense of community, we can get from this word is incredible.
Take it.
Shout it from the rooftops, and see how many people shout back.
We. Are. Writers.
The importance of community
If there’s one thing 2020 has taught (well, it’s probably taught us a lot of things, like Chuck was right and we should hoard toilet paper), it’s the importance of community. Each community has their own purpose, their own aspects of life that they check up on, and writing communities are just the same.
Some people use their writing buddies to hold themselves accountable for progress and word counts. For me that’s never been a problem; if I make a promise to myself, it’s the same as making it to someone else. If you miss it for a good excuse, you’ll miss it for a bad excuse, to paraphrase the late great Terry Pratchett in Night Watch.
Obviously beta reading and critiquing is an invaluable use for the community, both giving and receiving. I’ve learnt so much critiquing other people’s work, although as of this post I’ve still not managed to get much of my work out there!
But I found another purpose of the writing community the other day, in the slightly obscure way that I come at things.
As a guide for what is enough.
I’m the worst at self-care and pacing myself, and live my life from ‘to do’ list to ‘to do’ list. No matter how much I’m doing there’s always so much more to do, and I never feel like I’m doing enough.
And then someone on the online writing retreat praised me for how many words I’d done during a session. To me it didn’t really feel like enough, and I was far too aware of all the downtime I’d had skipping through YouTube videos. But that’s only because my sense of scale is way off. Having someone drag me back to earth and go, ‘No, that’s fine, you’re doing enough’ was something of a revelation. It gave me that brief sense of calm and achievement that we live for, before I threw myself at yet more work.
So find your community! Don’t always compare yourself to them (every group has that one sod who’ll throw words out like there’s no tomorrow, and has a spotless house and amazing social life as well), but let them be your touchstones for normality.
Or at least, for what passes for normality amongst writers ;)
Writing Lessons for Life
Rewriting my first (scheduled-to-be-published) manuscript was a time. It was one of my earliest works, and some pieces of it were taken verbatim from stuff I’d written over a decade ago.
All of that by itself would be reason enough for plenty of rewriting, but as my editing software was keen to point out, most of the manuscript was written in the passive tense.
“That’s fine,” my husband said. “Assuming you’re going for a Tolkien-esque narrative.”
I wasn’t. Which meant I had to tweak the entire thing to make it ‘active’.
And as I was doing it I spotted the problem.
I automatically say things like ‘they probably went that way’ when a character wouldn’t know for sure. Which is exactly how I’d speak in real life, even if I was 90% sure that was the way they went.
But for ‘strong’ writing you can’t say that. Everyone has to be utterly convinced of themselves all the time. No second guessing, no hedging their bets.
The sky is blue, not bluish.
There stood here, not they might’ve stood here.
We’re winning, not I think we’re winning.
At first this was quite uncomfortable to write (see how I’m still doing it?). There were so many occasions when the characters wouldn’t have known something for sure, and it made sense to add the qualifier.
But that made it weak writing.
So, if that’s how I think, so does that my thoughts weak?
It’s a simplified way of thinking about it, but it was a nice little wake-up call.
The easiest way to make my writing stronger was to be more assertive in myself anyway.
Who knew writing would lead to life-coaching as well? :P
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