I Hate... Writing Books

writing books nevermore?

I don't, not really. There are about 1000 creative writing books that give good, solid advice, advice I could use. But I made a mistake with writing books. I bought them by the truck load before I began writing.

This isn't as daft as it sounds. I like to learn from books, so when I was getting married I bought married-type books. When I was pregnant, I bought baby-having books. I like to be prepared, though I'm woefully aware that how-to books only give you a foundation, a peek at a real experience.

So I figured writing how-to books would do the same. They'd help me understand what was involved. You don't read a cookbook after the souffle has flattened into a discus, do you? So I figured I had to read as many writing books as I could before getting started.

If I'd known myself better, I would have realized that this was grade A procrastination. Another problem was that everything described in the how-tos was abstract. Don't use these dialogue tags. Show don't tell. Make the reader feel the emotion. These books always have example text included to show good writing and bad. The good writing is always the Great Gatsby and the bad writing is always someone you've never heard of. But until I had completed my own book and revised the crap out of it, until I understood writing terms not only intellectually but by instinct, all that advice was so much noise.

Until. (You knew that was coming.)

Hooked by Les Edgerton

My beta reader extraordinaire, Becky Levine, after reading my book's first chapter, recommended Hooked to me. The fact that she recommended a writing book to me after my first chapter made me cry inside, just a smidge. OK, a lot. I thought I was beyond writing books - I'd read them and they hadn't helped - and being told I needed schooling did not feel warm and fuzzy.

Hooked is about beginnings and how getting the beginning right can have a positive knock on effect on your whole book. The beginning is a microcosm of the whole book. And if it isn't in your book, you may have a problem.

But here's the amazing part. After reading the first three chapters of Hooked, I knew what to do. I mean, I knew exactly what was missing in my first chapter. And a new scene, with Fin, Hero, a cleaver and a chicken, bloomed in my mind, complete. It was perfect. In a short, mundane kind of scene, I set up characters, set up conflict, story problem, surface problem AND foreshadowed the end. SLAM DUNK.

I couldn't have done that without writing BookEnd first. I wouldn't have understood what was missing. I sure as heck couldn't have come up with a solution without understanding my book the way I do now that it's finished.

So, if you are just starting to write and you haven't finished your book, I say save your money for lattes and chocolate to get you to the writing finish line. Then get Hooked. It will open your eyes.

What's your favorite writing book?

Insecure Writers' Support Group - Permission to Give Up

You know how some people are afraid of speaking in public? How they are just not able to get behind a podium without shaking like jello and spilling the water all over the mic, shorting out the entire sound system?

That's not me.

In fact, I've gotten up on that stage and presented everything from budget projections to speed networking (like speed dating but without the creepiness.) But that was for clients. I can talk any kind of nonsense in front of any number of people as long as I'm representing someone else. But as myself, as a writer?

Naked. Completely, uncomfortably and embarrassingly naked. That's how I feel. So when I realized I wanted to be a writer, I tried to come up with some structure, some thing that would give me the authority to say I'm a writer.

Yep, your looking at it. This blog. Then I went out and made bloggerly friends and read a ton about the industry. I went to a conference. I went to another conference. I blog-hopped. I lurked and commented and stalked. I was faking it until I made it. And I felt pretty good, pretty official and kosher.

Until I started getting rejections. I KNOW it's part of the process and I shouldn't take it personally. Tell that to my ego which is cowering under the (imaginary) BElieve in YOUrself embroidered pillow next to my desk. Insecurity for writers is a daily work hazard.

So I'm going to share with you my secret for soldiering on. Ready? I contemplate giving up. I think about what it would look like, feel like to just stop and say "I'm done." I let the idea of never doing this again fill my soul.

After I graduated from college I moved to England with my boyfriend. I was going to graduate school  in my favorite city in the world with the man I loved. It was going to be AWESOME. Until immigration deported my boyfriend (long, long story) and I was left alone with two duffle bags full of useless stuff and not a soul to talk to. I tried to be a grown up, find a flat, store my duffle bags, figure out what bus went to my school. But I was so lonely, so completely freaked out about not knowing ANYONE that I often cried (ok, ok wept is more accurate) myself to sleep.

I didn't know how to fill my time while I waited to see if boyfriend would be allowed back in (wrong visa, delays at consulate blah blah). One day I took the train to Oxford. it was shagging down rain. I got on the Oxford sightseeing double decker anyway. I sat behind the driver, watching him give his pater into the mic while me and a couple of Japanese tourists tried to make out the dreaming spires through rain smeared windows. The rain dripped onto my head until it drove me crazy. I went back to the train station and called my dad.

Now, brace yourself. This is before email/text/cell phones. I used a payphone with a phone card that you shoved into a slot. I cried at Dad. I told him how I was feeling and everything that had happened and why everything was so terrible. And he said the magic words.

"So, come home."

Nothing stops a weepy tizzy faster than some common sense. I could go home. I could give up. It would be easy to do. He'd pick me up at the airport and we'd forget all about this little adventure. By giving me permission to say "I give up." Dad made me realize that was the last thing I wanted to do.

I stayed for almost five years. My boyfriend eventually was allowed back in the UK. And, reader, I married him.

Go on, imagine what it would be like to throw the writing towel in. If it fills you with relief then, yeah, maybe its time to take a break. But, if like me, it makes you nauseous, like you'd rather suffer any indignity other than that, then - congrats - I confer upon you the title of 'writer.'