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Julie's Rules of Writing.
Apr. 14th, 2014 02:33 pmI know, I know, I always say that "there are no rules."
Welp. Maybe a few.
1. First and foremost: Do What Works For You. If you are an outliner, great! If you are a pantser, great! Some unholy amalgam of the two? Great! Ask twenty different writers what their process is, and you will get twenty different answers. Heck, my process is still evolving, and I've been at this awhile. A process that works beautifully on one piece may crash and burn on another. Be flexible.
2. Write What You Love. Yes, I realize that everyone always says "write what you know," and there's a certain element of truth to that--BUT. You can always find stuff out. With the advent of the internet, research is easy. Do you realize that we used to have physically go to the library, find things in the card catalog (yes, actual, physical cards, wrap your brains around that, kiddies), and then pull a book off the shelf and find the information in there that we needed? No more. A few typed words, a click of the mouse, and the world is at your fingertips.
Heck, if I stuck to writing what I personally know, I wouldn't have written any of my stories. I am not a billionaire genius pharmaceutical researcher, a werewolf anything, a time-traveling wizard, a necromancer, a Guardian Angel, a retired monster hunter, a butler, or a spaceship captain. I am certainly not male, although most of my protagonists are.
But writing what you love--that right there is where the magic happens. If you're passionate about your subject matter (no matter what it is; obviously for me, it's werewolves, but pick your poison), then it will come across in your prose (or poetry), and other people will love it too.
Corollary: Don't Write The Trend; Be The Trend. If you're trying to write novels to trends you're seeing in bookstores right now, understand that you're a good four years behind the curve. Publishing moves at a glacial pace. It will take you about a year to write and polish a novel. Call it another six months to find an agent. Call it another six months for them to find a publisher. And another eighteen months to two years before that book actually hits store shelves. With short fiction, you might be able to write to a trend, but don't count on it. Write your passion, and you might start the Next Big Thing yourself.
3. Grow Rhino Skin. I'm not even kidding. If you don't have it, then get some now. I just saw someone (who will remain unnamed) on a forum (which will also remain unnamed) go off on another poster for using the term "kid." He loudly proclaimed that he was not a "kid" and got terribly offended where offense was neither intended nor implied. I am fifty years old. I am new to that particular forum. By their standards, I, too, am a "kid." This kid? Is nineteen. Of all the things to get indignant about...
Look, kiddos. If you're going to fly off the handle at every little slight at an early point in your career, then what will you do when the rejections start rolling in, or when (not if, when) you get a scathing review? You have got to let that stuff roll off your back, or it will make you crazy. I have a tag which makes for entertaining reading on how not to act as a writer. You are not special. No one is going to wind bubble wrap around you and pat your widdle head. This business--and it is a business--is brutal. Sometimes stupidly so. And it's fine to rant about it. But do it behind locked posts to a small circle of friends; don't show your ass in public where editors will see it. If you look like someone who is difficult to work with, guess what? They won't want to work with you. Blowing a gasket over an imagined slight is a really good way to look like someone who is difficult to work with.
4. Write! Submit! Write! Submit! Corollary: Never Give Up, Never Surrender. If you want to make this a career, you have to finish things, and you have to send them out. They're not doing you a lick of good languishing on your hard drive. Make a spreadsheet, use the Submission Grinder or Duotrope or Ralan's or agentquery, and start getting your stuff in front of editors and agents. I have twenty-one pieces out right now, which is an embarrassment of riches and partially a function of the fact that I wrote sixteen stories last year. If you get a rejection, cry for two seconds and then send it someplace else. I have stories with over twenty rejections that finally got accepted to pro- or semi-pro-paying venues that didn't even exist when I first wrote them. New markets are popping up all the time. Find them, submit to them. If all else fails, then self-publish, which is not the Kiss of Death it used to be.
So. Those are the rules. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a werewolf to whomp.
Welp. Maybe a few.
1. First and foremost: Do What Works For You. If you are an outliner, great! If you are a pantser, great! Some unholy amalgam of the two? Great! Ask twenty different writers what their process is, and you will get twenty different answers. Heck, my process is still evolving, and I've been at this awhile. A process that works beautifully on one piece may crash and burn on another. Be flexible.
2. Write What You Love. Yes, I realize that everyone always says "write what you know," and there's a certain element of truth to that--BUT. You can always find stuff out. With the advent of the internet, research is easy. Do you realize that we used to have physically go to the library, find things in the card catalog (yes, actual, physical cards, wrap your brains around that, kiddies), and then pull a book off the shelf and find the information in there that we needed? No more. A few typed words, a click of the mouse, and the world is at your fingertips.
Heck, if I stuck to writing what I personally know, I wouldn't have written any of my stories. I am not a billionaire genius pharmaceutical researcher, a werewolf anything, a time-traveling wizard, a necromancer, a Guardian Angel, a retired monster hunter, a butler, or a spaceship captain. I am certainly not male, although most of my protagonists are.
But writing what you love--that right there is where the magic happens. If you're passionate about your subject matter (no matter what it is; obviously for me, it's werewolves, but pick your poison), then it will come across in your prose (or poetry), and other people will love it too.
Corollary: Don't Write The Trend; Be The Trend. If you're trying to write novels to trends you're seeing in bookstores right now, understand that you're a good four years behind the curve. Publishing moves at a glacial pace. It will take you about a year to write and polish a novel. Call it another six months to find an agent. Call it another six months for them to find a publisher. And another eighteen months to two years before that book actually hits store shelves. With short fiction, you might be able to write to a trend, but don't count on it. Write your passion, and you might start the Next Big Thing yourself.
3. Grow Rhino Skin. I'm not even kidding. If you don't have it, then get some now. I just saw someone (who will remain unnamed) on a forum (which will also remain unnamed) go off on another poster for using the term "kid." He loudly proclaimed that he was not a "kid" and got terribly offended where offense was neither intended nor implied. I am fifty years old. I am new to that particular forum. By their standards, I, too, am a "kid." This kid? Is nineteen. Of all the things to get indignant about...
Look, kiddos. If you're going to fly off the handle at every little slight at an early point in your career, then what will you do when the rejections start rolling in, or when (not if, when) you get a scathing review? You have got to let that stuff roll off your back, or it will make you crazy. I have a tag which makes for entertaining reading on how not to act as a writer. You are not special. No one is going to wind bubble wrap around you and pat your widdle head. This business--and it is a business--is brutal. Sometimes stupidly so. And it's fine to rant about it. But do it behind locked posts to a small circle of friends; don't show your ass in public where editors will see it. If you look like someone who is difficult to work with, guess what? They won't want to work with you. Blowing a gasket over an imagined slight is a really good way to look like someone who is difficult to work with.
4. Write! Submit! Write! Submit! Corollary: Never Give Up, Never Surrender. If you want to make this a career, you have to finish things, and you have to send them out. They're not doing you a lick of good languishing on your hard drive. Make a spreadsheet, use the Submission Grinder or Duotrope or Ralan's or agentquery, and start getting your stuff in front of editors and agents. I have twenty-one pieces out right now, which is an embarrassment of riches and partially a function of the fact that I wrote sixteen stories last year. If you get a rejection, cry for two seconds and then send it someplace else. I have stories with over twenty rejections that finally got accepted to pro- or semi-pro-paying venues that didn't even exist when I first wrote them. New markets are popping up all the time. Find them, submit to them. If all else fails, then self-publish, which is not the Kiss of Death it used to be.
So. Those are the rules. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a werewolf to whomp.
