My Lit Credo ... Writing Tips ... Letter to The Believer magazineI wrote a letter to The Believer (believermag.com). They didn't publish it. So I'll post it here .... February 5, 2004 Dear believers and disbelievers alike, I’ve been losing and finding myself in how-to-write books lately. So it was, well, fun to find a good number of the books I’ve read--Gardner’s On Becoming A Novelist, King’s On Writing, Lamott’s Bird by Bird, etc.--in Tom Bissell’s gem of an article "Sir, Permission to go AWOL from the Interesting, Sir!", from the Dec 2003 / Jan 2004 issue. While I don’t consider myself worthy yet, below are some of my guiding principles for becoming a writer; just silly tidbits that have been part of my journey to walk in the footsteps of literary giants (I moved to New York City partly because Bret Easton Ellis once said: “The city inspired me, like it does all writers”), catch up to them, claw up their bodies, and, eventually, stand on their shoulders: 1. Be unregretful [sic] when declining social invitations. Practice saying, “No thanks, I’m writing.” Ignore friends who joke that you should give up writing because “you can’t polish a turd.” 2. Write in cafés where other writers hang out, bump heads, swap war stories, sleep around. Soon you’ll be having conversations that include phrases such as, “This particular sentence really had me nervous,” and, “Foreplay your reader, then just jam them.” Ecstasy in spades. Then, when you realize you can’t really write productively in public and that, ultimately, you’re on your own--it’s time to re-discover the liberation of being the one person who’s going to pull your literary dream off. Remember though, it’s never you against the world or your café latte peers, it is--and always will be--you against you. 3. Keep a journal/diary. Sexual conquests (real and imagined), the family feuds your friends are dying from, the politics of East African nations--journal/diary everything. Post-coital or on the potty, yank your journal/diary out like a gunslinger. Anything you can land your pen on is now officially and un-sanctimoniously material. It’s all practice. 4. Experiment. Mix Red Bull and red wine when you write. Masturbate while you write and! enjoy! how! this! leads! to! a! much! different! use! of! punctuation! 5. When in doubt, one recourse is: Edit → Select All → Delete. Or, just figure that self-doubt is a natural part of the process. And don’t let that stop you. 6. Study first-timers like Craig Clevenger and Zadie Smith. Admit to yourself you’ll never compare. And don’t let that stop you. 7. Plaster your writing space with post-it-note aphorisms. Mine include: “Aim high. Aim higher. Then re-aim. Yes! Yes!! YES!!!” “Sometimes I might think I can't do this, but I can, because I'm the author.” “Be a writer’s writer.” “Be prolific! Why? Because!” 8.
Stop daydreaming of your novel doing the Hollywood-crossover, of you
strutting like an Arabian horse down the red carpet with lovers on each
arm and walls of flashbulbs blasting you. Never lose sight of one of
Tom Bissell’s observations: “good writing--solid, honest, entertaining,
beautiful good writing--is simultaneously the reward, the challenge,
and the goal.” Be brilliant on the basics rather than noxiously
wondering how much your self-published teen poetry collections might
fetch at Sotheby’s once you’re more critically acclaimed than Salman
Rushdie, more popular than J. K. Rowling, and more respected than
Norman Mailer. Remember: writing makes one a writer, not wanting to have written. Writing’s a lifestyle. Undeceive yourself that being read is the main reason you’re here. Lee Bob Black New York, NY Disclosure: Lee Bob Black did not receive any compensation for writing this content and has no material connection to the topics, products and/or services that are mentioned herein. More info on this disclosure: www.cmp.ly/0/w3efj5 |