One Word Describes It All…

“How do you start to write?”

I’ve been getting this question the last few months and I always hear it asked during author panel discussions,

It’s a simple question with a not-so-simple answer. Most authors reply with, “Write. Just write.” But, to a new writer, this answer is a bit of a letdown. No shade to the authors. It’s a valid response. Just. Write.

As a new writer myself, I really wanted to dive deeper into this answer. These amazingly successful, best-selling authors are telling us to “Just write.” But how?

Strapping on my Learning & Development hat from my prior career and geeking out a bit, I wanted to dive into this answer.

In its simplest form, “Just write” is a valuable piece of advice. Writing is a muscle, and when you don’t use it, your writing loses strength. If you only write for a few hours every few months, that muscle weakens, making it harder to dive into your story. You might forget crucial details like whether your female character has green or brown eyes, whether the house is a one-story or two-story, or even if it’s morning or winter in your story.

Have you noticed how our lives are nowadays? We’re busier than ever before. You might be thinking, “Seriously, Megan… I only have a few hours every few months…” But I’d like to challenge that mindset.

All or Nothing Mentality

If you’re an all-or-nothing type like me, you may think that if you’re going to write, you have to write for three hours a day, every day, or it’s not worth doing it. But that’s not true at all. Will you progress faster and hone your skill quicker if you write for three hours a day, every day? Absolutely. But friend, this is not a sprint. Writing a book is a marathon. We’re here for the long haul and the ten water stations along the way.

But…could you fit in twenty minutes every day? Probably. And that might not seem like a lot, but have you heard of the term, compound interest? Twenty minutes, every day, for a year is quite a lot of writing. And! You’re writing every day, so you’ll know what’s going on with your characters, what they’re wearing, and that the female character does, in fact, have brown eyes.

Perfection

I don’t know if many authors share this, but I’m happy to. Your first draft is going to suck. There. I said it. This gives you permission to suck. I encourage it.

I struggled with perfection, thinking my first draft had to be eloquently written, all thoughts articulated poetically. It’s not true.

I think authors are afraid to show what their first drafts look like. I think because of this, new writers think that the first draft is publishable. That might be true for the John Grishams and Danielle Steels of the world, but not for most authors.

Writing a book is a journey. A journey of mismatched words clinging together. A journey of horribly written sentences. A journey of “oh sh*t, I forgot to add a major plotline into chapter four.”

I Have to Know the First Scene

No, you don’t. There are many authors who start the book in the middle. Or the end. Or somewhere in between. Some authors write random scenes and then piece them together later like sewing together a quilt of mismatched fabrics.

We put so much pressure on the beginning chapter (for obvious reasons). Don’t let that hold you back from writing your story. Skip chapter one and go back to it later. You’ll have a better understanding of your characters’ motivations and personalities by then, which will help you write a page-turning chapter one.

I Have to Know the Whole Story

I didn’t know the ending of my book for months….MONTHS! And I felt like an idiot because I didn’t know the ending (other than an HEA, of course). It was a writing teacher that reassured me I don’t have to know the ending, or what happens in the middle. It’ll come, in time. And that leads me to the next point.

Be Patient

Have you ever heard that wise old phrase, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”? Yeah, me neither… But here’s the thing. New writers think they can whip out a book in just a couple of months. It takes well-established authors a full year to create their magic, six months if they have a full team of editors.

Make sure that you’re not unnecessarily pressuring yourself. And make sure those (even avid readers) don’t put that pressure on you either. No one truly knows the time that goes into writing a book until they are knee-deep in it!

I want to take a stab at creating a framework for writing your first book. This blog partnered with the framework blog should help answer the question, “How do I get started as a writer?”