Before you write a word
Author and lecturer James McCreet addresses the passionate and frustrated writer in all of us
I was looking through an old journal the other day. It was written twelve years before my first novel was published and its major concern was how to become a writer. When would a voice finally emerge? How might I improve my style? Where did story ideas come from? Why could I never finish anything despite so passionately wanting to do so?
Retrospect is bittersweet. If I could go back in time and visit that younger self, what might I tell him about eventually becoming a novelist? Knowing him, I don’t think he would have listened to anybody’s advice, which was no doubt part of the problem. When somebody has achieved what you have not, they’re at least worth hearing.
The thing about experience is that it’s accumulative. New knowledge absorbs or erases what went before and we begin to forget how it felt truly to be a beginner. That’s why reading this old journal made me so grateful for the record of a process I’d largely forgotten. It made me want to prepare some advice for a time capsule back to my younger self... and to anyone who’s now in the same position I was.
BE PATIENT
The hardest advice of all, especially when you’re quite young or quite old. The idea of taking years to achieve the required standard and to do enough reading is almost too frustrating to bear. However, it’s not a matter of waiting; it’s a matter of working. The ability to write doesn’t ‘just come’ – it’s earned through years of practice. The best way to fill the time is to write, read, seek feedback and learn as much as possible. Time flies when you’re writing hard.
Leggete l'articolo completo e molti altri in questo numero di
Writing Magazine
Opzioni di acquisto di seguito
Se il problema è vostro,
Accesso
per leggere subito l'articolo completo.
Singolo numero digitale
September 2016
Questo numero e altri numeri arretrati non sono inclusi in un nuovo
abbonamento. Gli abbonamenti comprendono l'ultimo numero regolare e i nuovi numeri pubblicati durante l'abbonamento.
Writing Magazine
Abbonamento digitale annuale
€69,99
fatturati annualmente
Abbonamento digitale di 6 mesi
€35,99
fatturati due volte l'anno