Writing

The Cretin’s Top Ten Tips to Being the Greatest Writer Ever

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1. Don’t hold back.

Bruce Lee taught martial arts and he was the best at what he did. Words, however, are your weapons, so verbally abuse your competitors with cutting cynicism and bludgeoning sarcasm via book reviews and online critique groups until they quit in despair.

2. Get an agent.

Why? Instant street cred – they look great on your side at writer-type parties and book launches. Avoid marrying them though – marriages never end well and you don’t want to risk children as nappy fumes suffocate creativity.

3. Practice, practice, practice.

The best way to practice, of course, is to teach what you know, so grab yourself a bunch of two-year-olds and go for it. It’s probably best to ask their parents for permission first – parents get a bit antsy when their children disappear from day care centres without notice.

4. Master character development.

The more flaws you find in your friends, the better you’ll get at depicting character. Pick on their looks, hair, physical shape, attitude, intelligence, and anything else that seems appropriate. Hopefully you’ll master character development before your friends master Bruce Lee’s teachings.

5. Read everything.

Use the internet for inspiration – the net has plenty of thinly-disguised D&D adventure stories, authoritarian scrawlings and self-delusional family histories to draw from. Declare your brilliance by showing up all the amateurs via comments on their blog postings.

6. Find a mentor.

Someone supportive, but avoid successful author as they’ll eventually resent your brilliance. Your mother, however, has been putting up with you for ever. Start with her (and she knows how to cook your favourite meal, too).

7. Join a writers’ group.

Every group needs a leader, right? Any writers’ centre should be able to point you at a bunch of feeble-minded cretins waiting to follow a dynamic, brilliant, creative, God-like being such as yourself, all of them willing pawns in your Game of Publishers. Walk in, crack a whip, and tell them who’s boss. That’ll end well.

8. Study the greats.

Pull out all your school essays and assignments for a quick lesson in awesomeness. Why bother looking anywhere but at your own writing?

9. Get all the right tools.

You know – a ghost writer. Why put all that effort in when someone else can do the dull stuff for you? Relax on a beach sipping pina coladas while someone oils your back while writing your masterpiece.

10. Get inspired.

Alcohol works best – and it’s legal. You’ll be surprised at your own genius when you proofread with half a bottle of vodka pickling your brain – typos, continuity errors and illogical character decisions will all become a joy to behold.

Thanks for taking at look at my latest Cretin’s Guide. If you have some additions, please post them in the comments!

 

Otherwise, might also like the Top 10 ways to Successfully Pitch to an Agent or Editor – The Cretin’s Guide, or if you’re in the mood for some epic fantasy, I’ve just posted the first few chapters of my epic fantasy Prophecy of Power: Quarry.

Update 4 – Writing plan for March

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Only managed about 400 new words this week, but I did do quite a bit of editing – 11,500 words worth, or about six chapters.

I’m aiming to improve on that this week. Got the Angry Robot submission coming up soon. It’d be great to have the whole thing ready on the first day of subs, rather than just the first 10-15,000 words in the hope of getting the rest of it up to scratch in the following weeks (just in case they ask for it).

If they want it, I don’t know how much time they’ll give me to get it to them. Better to be safe, and even if they don’t want to see the rest, it won’t exactly be a wasted effort.

Only thing I’m currently struggling with is how much to send in – where to cut it off. There’s a perfect spot just after the 15,000 word cut off, but if you ignore guidelines they’ll just reject you out of hand.

Bit of a tough call.

My writing plan for March

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  1. Write at least 250 words a day on my Work In Progress novel: Welcome to Earth. I want to do this just to stay in the habit of continually writing something new, but it should add over 1500 words a week to the novel.
  2. Add more tension to the ending of Prophecy of Power: Werewolf, in preparation for the Angry Robot Open Submission 2012 period.
  3. Plan out/brainstorm ideas for the next two novels I want to write: A sci-fi set 200,000 years into the future, and a bodyswap story.
  4. Write a weekly blog about my progress (to keep myself honest!).

Find out more about writing.

Make a decision

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Why is it so hard to complete a novel and get it on bookshelves?

It’s not really all that difficult if you stand back and look at it objectively.

  • You write, the word add up, and eventually there’s enough words to call it all a novel.
  • You rework it, get some feedback, fix it further, add a final coat of polish and send it away.

Its a process. Its simple. Repeat it often enough and you’ll eventually hit gold.

Why then do so many people get bogged down?

The fact is, it takes time – a sustained effort over a long period – to complete a novel, and then it takes a whole lot more time and effort to get it published.

Any sort of sustained effort is difficult because real life inevitably throws road blocks at you.

So how do you keep the enthusiasm up?

Make a decision.

“Yeah, I did that, but…”

No! Make a decision. A real decision! The kind of decision that goes like: “I’m going to do this no matter what!”. Not the “I’m going to write a novel” kind, because that’s giving yourself leeway to ‘always be writing a novel’. As Yoda says, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

The moment you commit to it however, it becomes easy.

Real life stops throwing road blocks in your way because you can see them for what they really are: speed bumps. They may slow you down a bit, but they can’t stop you any more.

Once you’ve made the decision, there isn’t a speed bump out there big enough to stop you. You’re going to get a novel on the shelves no matter what!

HarperCollins Varuna update

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A mere four days to go before the winners of the HarperCollins Varuna Manuscript Development Program are announced.

Do you think I’m nervous?

Well, not really, but maybe a little tense. I mean, it would be really great, but if I miss out, I’ve only got myself to blame. So…

What does that mean?

It means I’m close, regardless of winning or not, and if I’m close, it’s only a matter of time before I get there.

The next novel is written and I’ve started editing it. The one after that is ready to be written. If I miss out this time, I’ll just try again. And again. And again. Etc.

The problem with editing…

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The problem with spending hours editing a story is that at the end, you don’t really have much to show for it.

The word count might have changed a little, sentences and paragraphs irrevocably altered, even some chapters moved or removed, but from a distance it’s pretty much the same as it was before. The same story, at least – but hopefully better.

When you’re writing something new, there’s a growing word count you can point at and say ‘Ah-hah! That’s what I did today’. It adds up, too, swelling that sense of achievement.

With editing though – it’s malleable. Unless you’re making big, blatant changes, it can be really hard to tell the difference between the third and fourth layers of polish.

So, how do you get a sense of achievement, a clear indication you’re not on a never-ending treadmill?

Start with a plan. Work out what you want to do before you start, and stick to it.

First, review the story. Read it through, make notes, work out what you’re going to tackle and in what order, and decide how much you want to achieve each session.

Then, work your way through the story, stick to your plan, and at the end of it you’ll have edited the full draft.

Then, of course, repeat. Figure out what’s working, what’s not, and what could be better. Work out how to fix those things – and set to it, doing specifically that.

Repeat again as necessary, but try not to get into the habit of doing it over and over. Figure out exactly what you want to end up with, aim for it, and then get it out into the world when you’re done.

Game over. New project.

Redraft finished!

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Been away from the my website, blog, facebook, and twitter for a while now – barely had time to check in. Been busily redrafting the novel – and I think I’m finally done.
Now I’ve just got to edit for considtency and other internal errors, then proofread/line edit. Following that, maybe find a friendly reader or two who’s interested in offering feedback and hopefully on to publication. 🙂
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