"It's Okay to Take Risks"

As any regular reader of this blog knows, synchronicity happens a lot in my life. Today is no exception. This morning, I was involved in a discussion online about aiming for goals that might seem unrealistic. I'm a fan of the principle, but like so many good ideas in the world, it seems to me to have become a bit blurry. The idea that it was good to reach for unrealistic goals like publishing a novel or starting your own business or becoming a concert violinist seems to have somehow become lumped in one category with unrealistic goals like "I can make six figures with my blog, and I won't have to write any actual content!"

I'm also a much bigger fan of the "I can achieve any goal if I'm willing to sweat blood to do it" school of thought than the, "If I just think positive Oprah Winfrey will knock on my door and ask if she can help me get the book on my hard drive published because she's eagerly waiting to feature it in her book club" approach.

Now, as you may know, I'm a big fan of Jacquelyn Mitchard. I had the opportunity to see Ms. Mitchard speak this afternoon at the Midwest Literary Festival. It was very interesting for a number of reasons (many of which will undoubtedly be the subject of future posts), but the thing that really reverberated with me--perhaps because of that discussion earlier in the day--was her description of her decision to write a book instead of pursuing more conventional employment after she was widowed.

She said, "People had offered me real jobs," and that people kept asking her why she would "want to do something so stupid and so unlikely to succeed". And her response was that she wanted to show her children that it was okay to take risks.

She said a good deal more on the subject of pursuing your dreams and not being beaten down by life; she'd been widowed and her children had lost their father young, and she said that she'd always wanted them to know that no matter what life dealt you, it didn't give you permission to become small. It's a lot to think about, whatever your profession, but that one line is still ringing in my ears: "I wanted to show them that it was okay to take risks."

For anyone who doesn't know, Mitchard's "risk" was to write and send out a book called The Deep End of the Ocean. If you haven't read it, perhaps you've seen the movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer? The book was not only a bestseller, but was named by USA Today as one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years and was Oprah Winfrey's first book club selection. Since then, she's written seven more novels, and they've all been bestsellers.

If it sounds like I've digressed for a moment into tooting Jackie Mitchard's horn...well, maybe I'm guilty. She's the writer I want to be when I grow up, even though she's not too much older than I. But my real point--the point that's relevant to all of us--is that she could have listened. The naysayers who couldn't see why she didn't just get a "real job" aren't so much different from the people who lie to novice writers that it's "almost impossible to break in" these days or those who claim to have the only formula that could possibly work for a successful writer.

And if she'd listened....well, that's the thing. We never know, do we? The world is full of people who listened, people who look to us just like every other clerk in the grocery store or finance manager or carpenter, and we never know about the song or the books or the invention they might have hiding inside them.

Huh...Turns Out There IS Such a Thing as Too Much Writing

As I've mentioned before, I'm a prolific writer. I'm always dismayed when I read an interview with some author or other and she says "if I can get 500 good words a day..." or something like that. I averaged more than 1,000 "good words" a day when my only writing time was my 50 minute train ride and I was writing in pencil on a legal pad. Well, I suppose "good words" is open to debate, but they were as good as any of my other words.

It's not unusual, when I'm wrapped up in a project, for me to write 5,000-7,000 words a day. I've written two novels in less than a month each, one while working full time.

I say this not to annoy those of you who are striving for five hundred good words a day--that pace works well for a lot of very successful writers (most, I suspect). No, I bring this up because I want to let you in on a little secret: I always secretly thought that there was no limit. I thought that, left to my own devices, with no "real life" to intrude, I would just write until I fell asleep at my keyboard and never tire of it.

I wrote, by my best estimate (I'm too freaking tired to go back and count), 16,000 words today.
I do not know where the magical line between "total immersion" and "I'm going to die if I write another word" is, precisely, but I now know this: it comes somewhere BEFORE 16,000 words.
I'm 41 years old and I've been writing since I was six; this is the first time I've ever walked away from writing feeling worse than I did when I started. And I feel like I've been hit by a truck, physically. My body aches. My fingers are numb. My typing skills have taken a nosedive to some point just slightly lower than during the period when I was typing with my arm in a sling.

I'm a huge proponent of the idea that nothing is absolute when it comes to writing, and that no writer should ever say to other writers, "You HAVE TO..." or "Don't EVER..."
But listen. Don't EVER write 16,000 words in one day.

For the first time in my life, I got up from my desk not wishing that I had time to write a little more, but desperately craving a nice long break from writing.

That was four hours ago. I guess "nice long" is open to interpretation, too.

Characters and Character Traits

Recently, a passing comment in a discussion about favorite characters triggered some big questions in my mind--questions I don't think I'd ever considered in all my years as a reader and a writer. Another writer in the discussion seemed to indicate that the same characteristics drew her to a character as drew her to real-life people.

I was surprised, not so much to hear that that was true as to realize that I'd never thought about whether or not it was true for me. I quick mental scan revealed the high probability that it was not.

The writer who made the comment blogs about conversations overheard; perhaps it makes sense that the line between character and real person would not be a very bright one in her mind. She has a real knack for spinning people into characters after hearing only brief conversations.

For me, though, I think the things that make a character interesting and compelling are often things I wouldn't in a million years want to encounter in real life. Popular fiction alone is replete with examples. In fact, I think that the very thing that makes what I think of as "throwaway fiction" so appealing is the taste it offers of a life we'd never live.

• Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum is a walking disaster--and that's exactly what makes it possible to whip through the novels in which she stars in a couple of hours, with a recurrent smile. The sexual tension she maintains with two men, alternately or simultaneously depending upon the book, keeps things interesting. But in real life? She blunders into things she doesn't understand, keeps the people around her constantly worried, and lives her entire life on balanced on the praecipice of infidelity. NOT someone I'd want to hang out with.
• Robert Parker's Hawk is one of my all-time favorite characters in popular fiction. The contrast between his erudite literary tastes and his unfortunate choice of profession (hired killer) is compelling on paper--and to the string of educated professional women his character dates--but in real life? Hello...he KILLS people? A bit of a stumbling block, anyone?
• My daughter is quite intrigued by the character of Bellatrix LeStrange in the Harry Potter series. Bellatrix is, outside the primary villain in the series, perhaps the closest thing to pure, unconflicted evil presented in all of those 3,000+ pages. She has a certain attitude, a certain voice, that's a bit entertaining in that "love to hate" way...but one that would certainly (I hope) inspire disdain in real life.

The same is true, in less blatant fashion, in more literary fiction. One example that springs to mind is the character of Ole, the old man, in Ernest Hemingway's short story, "The Killers". Ole, when advised by teenage Nick Adams, that men have come to town to kill him, he simply rolls toward the wall. There's little to admire either in his implied past or in his resignation, but his few simple actions speak volumes.

Often, in fact, it's the things that are most reprehensible about a character, or saddest, or most lacking, or that the character himself is unable to see or to learn, that allow us to learn the most from him. Piet Hanema, in Updike's Couples, provides an excellent illustration.

Granted, these aren't necessarily the things that make a character likable, but they are often the things that make a character memorable, interesting, educational or critical to plot.

From a writer's perspective, that means that the characters we design to be heroes aren't necessarily going to be the ones who hold a reader's attention, or that it might be the flaws and dichotomies as much as the admirable traits that make a character memorable. Is that important to keep in mind? I'm not sure. I've been writing for more than 30 years, and the whole question came as something of a shock to me--but in retrospect, I find that hasn't affected my character development or kept me from creating characters who might not be the people I'd want living next door or working in my office.

Writing is Easy

Yeah, you heard me right.

I'm sick to death of hearing published authors carry on about how writing is a grueling task on a level with working in the coal mines.

Of course, your experience may differ.

But that's the whole point of this post, really--your experience may differ.

I think it's an important point to make, because novice writers are so quick to believe anything that an experienced writer says. I've been making my living primarily as a writer for about a dozen years. If I can get in a focused 5-6 hours of writing, I generally turn out about 5,000 words in a day, which may require light editing later.

Obviously, it's not like that for everyone--there are very successful writers who claim to hate the process of writing. Even Dorothy Parker said she didn't like writing, she liked "having written". I know writers for whom that's dead on. For me, I have no interest in "having written". The magic is all in the process for me...I lose interest in a work pretty quickly when it's done and only have eyes for the new blank page in front of me.

The single most important thing that a new or aspiring writer can know is that it's DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE.

• If writing is a lot more work than you expected it to be, don't get discouraged--many very successful authors describe the writing process and arduous and even painful.
• If writing flows out of your fingertips onto the page as if the words had just been waiting, already in order, to be released, don't assume you're a lightweight--many successful authors report that they feel like the words and stories "come from somewhere else".
• If you rely on outlines, great--write an outline. Many authors depend heavily on them.
• If you prefer to just sit down and write and see what happens, go for it. Regardless of what outline-dependent authors preach, you'll be in the company of several wildly successful authors--including Stephen King--if you opt to let your characters lead you.
• If you like to edit each day's work at the end of the day, or first thing the next morning, and that works out for you...do it. If it's more comfortable for you not to look back until you've reached the end...fine.
• Some writers do well with a very disciplined schedule, and some "binge write". As long as you're producing quality work and meeting your deadlines, it's no one's business but your own whether you write for two hours every morning or for twenty straight hours on Saturday.

The bottom line is that virtually every piece of writing advice you hear from a published writer is based on what worked for that writer. You are not that writer. Your mileage may vary. There is a lot to be learned from successful writers, but only if you have the strength and confidence to take what works for you and leave the rest. If you're a free-form writer and that's always worked well for you, it's entirely possible that buying into someone's proclamation that you "can't write a coherent novel without an outline" is going to cripple your writing. If you're at your best in the early morning hours, the fact that some other writer has great success staying up all night writing shouldn't influence you.

Be the writer you are. That's the only "writing tip" that works for every writer.

A Whole New Can of Writing Worms

Last week, I wrote this post about what makes a writer in response to another blogger's comment on her blog about another blogger's comment on her blog about....well, we've covered all that already. But then a comment to the original post raised yet another question: we've all agreed (I think) that you don't have to be published to be a writer, but does being published make one a writer?

Again, I think it depends wholly upon usage. If "writer" is a state of being, then no, it does not. Or at least, there's a fair argument to be made that it doesn't. But if "writer" denotes a person making a living in a particular profession, then I don't think quality counts. There are good and bad doctors and good and bad lawyers and good and bad waitresses and good and bad mechanics, but we don't quibble about their titles. We don't walk out of a restaurant after getting bad service and say, "she wasn't really a waitress!" Crappy service or not, she's a waitress because it's her job title. The same can be true of a writer.

I don't necessarily think that talent is a prerequisite to becoming a writer by trade. Perhaps there is a line that one can't cross without talent, but with thousands of publications and tens of thousands of Internet outlets and hundreds of thousands of small businesses in need of copywriting services and websites, it's certainly feasible to make a living as a writer without crossing those lines.

In fact, I strongly suspect that many without what some of us would term talent HAVE crossed those lines. I'm not going to name any names, but I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this can quickly call to mind a wildly successful writer that he or she doesn't think can write. I'm not talking about someone whose style you don't care for, someone who doesn't suit your tastes, but someone you truly think is just a BAD writer.

You know you can.

So...if you're a writer...a writer who wants to be published...a writer who wants to make a living writing...maybe even a writer who secretly yearns for fame and fortune...what does that writer have that you don't?

Seriously.

Writing about Writing (Wait...Have I Used That Already?)

Well.

There's a whole new state of affairs around here, and I don't know what to do about it.

You see, I've been happily writing along assuming that no one was reading a word of this and I could say any damned thing I pleased, and then suddenly, Barb Cooper blogged about one of my recent posts (in the same post where she showed us the scars from the reconstructive surgery on her foot--I'm just sure that was a coincidence. Really.) and then this lady I don't even know apparently read Barb's post and followed the link to my post...and the next thing you know it's like BLOGGING or something.

It got me thinking about terminology. "Writer" is a funny word, because it can denote both a profession and a state of being. Other professions aren't like that; I was a writer long before I was published, but I wasn't a lawyer or a teacher or even a hostess in a restaurant until I was hired into those positions. I certainly thought of myself as a writer back in the day when no one--and I mean no one--ever saw a word that I wrote. Back in the days before email and blogging, before I was making my living as a writer, I just wrote and wrote and wrote, and when I finished something I tossed it in my desk drawer (I didn't even have filing cabinets back then) and started something new. And I defined myself as a writer not because I made my living that way--I didn't even have a living to make, back in high school and then college and then law school. I thought of myself as a writer because it was who I was, how I thought, what was most natural and elemental about me.

All I really wanted to do in life was write. That's what made me a writer. I'm also a writer by profession now, and when I wrote this post about blogging being dangerous for writers, I meant (though didn't specify) writers who wanted to write professionally. It's hard for me to imagine that any writer wouldn't want to write professionally, but that's not because I have any desire for fame or fortune or to be "heard" or anything like that. It's simply because I forget that some people have the luxury of time to write WITHOUT using it to support themselves.

I've been writing since I was six; I started publishing because it was the only way I could buy myself time to write. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that most writers are like me in the sense that there's virtually nothing they'd rather be doing than writing, and that a lot of other necessary activities in life feel like time stolen from writing. Since the realities of life required me to be doing something lucrative 50 or more hours a week (feeding my kid wasn't one of the things I was willing to sacrifice in order to find time to write), I had a choice--give up the vast majority of the time I could be writing, or make writing pay. I'm no more a writer today because I have a full time writing job and a few freelance gigs on the side than I was when I was seventeen and I was writing short stories no one has ever read to this day. But I'm MUCH more a writer today than I was when I was practicing law 60 hours a week and didn't write for months on end, and I'm much more a writer today than I was when I was teaching and training and doing admissions consulting around raising a child alone and I didn't write for months on end.

For anyone who has the luxury all the time he or she wants to write without having to make a living at it, I can't think of a reason in the world that publishing is better than not. But for anyone who, like me, has to make a choice among giving up writing, giving up sleep, or finding a way to make it pay, I stand by my original thoughts. Put your effort where the opportunity is. There will be plenty of time to blog when the money is rolling in.