how to train a writer

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it."                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                        — A.A. Milne

Positive reinforcement.

They say it's the proper way to train dogs and children. (Doesn't work too well for soldiers or politicians, though.)

I think it might work for writers, too.

I haven't been a writer for long. (Or, perhaps, it's more accurate to say that I haven't called myself a writer for long.) But even in such a short span of time, it's occurred to me that a writer's medium is ink, paper, and ego. We're violently insecure creatures, we writers. After all, we are putting ourselves down on paper, not just words. Our most intimate feelings, fondest wishes, darkest desires, and wildest imaginings all appear on the printed page. It's only natural that we'd feel shy about baring so much of our psyche for all the world to see.

But it isn't only our imagination that's on trial: it's our ability to translate our imagination into words on paper. Dreaming up an idea is only half the battle. (I could go into the planning vs. pantsing debate here, but that's a blog post for another day.) After giving mental form to our brainchildren, we must make them tangible. Somehow those impulses, feelings, and thoughts must wend their merry way from our brain to our fingers, diffuse through our skin onto the keyboard, and pop up magically on the page (or screen) in front of us.

That is where the real insecurities manifest themselves.

An idea, a paragraph, or a sentence which seemed so real and true and good and pure and perfect in our heads can fail miserably to materialize on the page. Distilling haphazard neural impulses into English isn't quite as easy as our favorite writers make it seem. Something inevitably gets lost in translation. As Stephen King puts it, the best writers are the ones who can conceive a viable idea—discover a fossil, as he puts it—and then, through hard work, persistence, critical thinking, and hefty revision, tease most of that fossil out of the ground without breaking, chipping or scratching it. You're never going to get all of it. But with practice, you can retrieve everything important.

I think it's that arena where I'm most lacking as a writer. I could dream up good story ideas all day—one pops into my head every hour or so. But putting 'em down on paper is another matter. Whether it's because I haven't practiced enough, or haven't read widely enough, or just haven't had that seminal burst of inspiration...I'm not sure of the reason, but I have awesome difficulty in translating my ideas into words. I can think of a good story, but not write one.

I've been meditating lately about my difficulties as a writer, and my shortcomings: all the things I wish I could do better, like the professionals. I wish I could bestir myself to write more. Seems like every time I feel I should write something I inevitably wander off to my books, games, movies, or introspective evening walks.

Strike One: Not working hard (or often) enough.

Even if I do start something, I'll inevitably bang a few thousand words out, then stop for the day. I'll read some rewarding piece of fiction by Clarke or van Vogt or Asimov. I'll take another look at my paltry work, and delete it in disgust.

Strike Two: Not having enough confidence as a writer.

Let's say I even finish something (long odds, now that you've seen what I'm up against). Suddenly, as the last word is typed, and I sit back and look at the project as a whole, I'll become afraid of it. It'll mutate into a monster, a hideous abomination of unpolished writing, undeveloped themes, flaccid characters, and puerile premise. On the instant, my lovingly crafted story becomes an unconquerable mess. Self-destructive thoughts spin through my mind: Yuck. This is terrible. There's no way I'll be able to fix this. Robert Heinlein couldn't salvage this junk. There's so much to read over, to repair, to tweak, to trim, to perfect. I'll never finish. Hell, I don't even know where to begin. I think I'll just leave it for later.

Strike Three: Not having the persistence, or courage, to edit and revise (let alone submit).

Noticing a pattern here?

Fear.

All of my shortcomings as a writer stem, fundamentally, from fear. Insecurity. Lack of confidence. Inexperience.

I understand that I am afraid. I've blogged about it before. (Go back and look for the specific post if you want; I'm too distracted to get up a link.)

Now, that begs the question: since I know what my problem is, how do I go about solving it?

Well, a little affirmation would be nice. It'd be great if somebody (preferably a discerning science fiction fan) would come up behind me while I was typing, look over my shoulder, and say "Cool idea," or "Nice turn of phrase there, chief," or "Wow!  I never thought about it that way," or "Hurry up, I wanna know what happens next!"

I caught myself thinking these exact thoughts this morning, as I revisited a science fiction novelette that I had submitted to Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine, which had been rejected for "failing to excite the interest of the reader."

And then it hit me: maybe the reason I'm so afraid, insecure, and under-confident about my work is that, well, I've never received any positive reinforcement. Nobody in a position of authority has ever told me "Well done, keep up the good work." My friends and family have read my drivel and told me they liked it, that it was well-written and engaging, but as kind as their comments are, they're not expert. The editors of sci-fi magazines have been reading sci-fi for years (and often write the stuff themselves). Moreover they are well-informed where their readers' tastes are concerned, and know exactly what'll turn an audience on or off. And so far, none of my stuff has been up to code. And it's been rejected. Flat-out.

So maybe, subconsciously (for I would never think something as insecure or foolish as this out loud), I've gotten the idea that I'm not a good writer, and that I shouldn't even bother trying.

Amazing, huh?

Fancy your humble Vaunter thinking a thing like that!

Hell, I know I'm a good writer. I like what I do. I have a masterful command of the English language, and I can turn a phrase on a dime. It's just funny what the lack of positive reinforcement can do to a person's mind. Just because Gordon Van Gelder has never written me an enthusiastic letter praising my brilliant work, and begging to be the sole recipient of any future fictive endeavors, I somehow assumed that I wasn't that good. And that lack of self-esteem and confidence might've proven absolutely debilitating if I hadn't caught it in time.

I'm glad I had this epiphany. Praise is not a shot of espresso (or adrenaline). It's the icing on the cake, a pleasant glow to bask in after one has achieved something...usually not the something that one expected to achieve. If the famous writers of sci-fi had set about their work with popularity and acclaim in mind, and refused to budge without it, then the annals of science fiction would be barren indeed, if even extant.

I just have to keep perspective. I need to look at every fresh project as a clean slate, and to give it my all (and fix its shortcomings in the revision phase). I need to keep working, keep learning, keep practicing, keep writing. I need to remember that there is victory even in the attempt. I mustn't let my fears and doubts weigh me down. Nothing worthwhile in history was ever achieved without effort—or fear. The winner is distinguished from the loser not by his lack of fear, but by his refusal to bow down to it.

And so, cheers to you, fellow writers. Cheers from the catbird seat. Your brother-in-arms is out here, still endeavoring to craft something worth an editor's second glance. Keep calm and carry on.

POSTSCRIPT:
For the final irony, I was listening to AC/DC while typing this post. The last song played before I finished was "Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be."

where to begin

I'm bad with beginnings. I have trouble starting up a new story. I can sustain a tale once it gets rolling, but actually providing the inertia to get things moving, and get them moving properly, is a trial and a tribulation. This debility has plagued me since Day One. Except for academic essays (where all you have to do is tell people what you're going to write about and throw in an interesting hook), writing those first few lines has always frustrated me.

I agonized for years over how to begin my first novel. I must've started at least 40 or 50 times (no exaggeration). Always, I'd get about twenty pages in, look over what I'd written, foam at the mouth at how inane and awkward it was, and tear up the manuscript or delete it violently from my computer. It's only by some miracle that this, the 51st edition, managed to survive the initial purge, the Page Twenty Anxiety Attack. I decided to stick with it. I said, "I'll fix it in the editing. The important thing is just to write the story right now, get it going."

And sure enough, after biting the bullet for the first 40 pages, things picked up. The beginning ended. Act II commenced. Things started to roll, and when I got to the end, what I had was, to my eyes, at least halfway decent. I was readily able to go from there and start revision.

Beginnings have become marginally easier for me in recent months. I've had much better luck with the four short stories that I'm currently working on (well, six; but two of them might turn into novels, if they don't turn out too corny). The introductions to these stories have flowed very easily. Story #3 (which I'll call Cryptozoology) danced off my fingers, dripping menace all over the page, getting me high enough on myself to believe I was the next Lovecraft or Campbell. Story #4 (Airplanes) was a bit more viscous, but it gradually eased itself off the ground, with a goodly amount of foreshadowing and suspense in tow. (Only Story #2, Crunch, worries me—the beginning is about as formulaic and inane as a two-dollar romance novel.)

The only thing I can attribute this to is PRACTICE. Writing is a sport, like soccer (or "football," depending on where you're from). To get good at writing, you must practice it. Practice hard, and practice often. Writing every day is vital. Create a routine, cultivate a special frame of mind for your writing that you can slip in and out of like a pair of broken-in track shoes. Train your fingers to the keyboard, your eyes to the page, your mind to the story. It may seem like work—it may seem like you must take time out of your day to write. Well, yes, you must, if you want to succeed. Nothing about writing is easy. You have to work hard at it. But you'll be able to dive in with less of a warm up, increase your productivity a hundredfold, if you engage in the writing game on a daily basis.

Don't just expose yourself to your own writing, either. Read everything you can get your hands on. And don't just read. Stephen King gave burgeoning writers another good hint in his book, On Writing: get yourself some audio books and listen to those when you're driving to work and back. (Because, King asked, how many times do you need to listen to Deep Purple's "Highway Star"?) This improves your writing in a mechanical sense (giving you an eye and an ear for grammar, syntax, and diction). Your style will be positively influenced as well. Nothing inspires me more than bouncing from one author and one genre to the next—Mark Twain to Jules Verne to Louisa May Alcott to Douglas Adams to Dalton Trumbo—picking up a new word here, a different turn of phrase there, comparing styles and voices and seeing what works for me, crafting my own voice from the information I've gleaned.

And speaking of craft, what could improve your craft more than reading some of the greats'? Constantly seeking to improve your writing is the final tenet of my How to Become a Master Writer Without Breaking the Bank on Self-Help Books or Attending Weak-Kneed Writer's Workshops plan. Always be on the lookout for ways to make your writing better. Sure, self-help books do help, but they're not a cure-all. You shouldn't do like I did and buy a pile of them, sift through them at a snail's pace, and wind up even more daunted about writing and editing than you were before. Writer's workshops can be a godsend, but they're also a crap shoot. It's hit or miss whether you'll find one that will actually be useful. Too often writer's workshops are full of vague, limp-wristed folks who won't give you any solid or specific information about how to improve your work. They'll just say things like "Oh, I liked this part," or "The symbolism was great, particularly that bit with the severed head," or "I don't know, the bit where Miss Pennyfeather yodels through a mouthful of yogurt really sounded great." Very infrequently will you run across a group of writers that will tell you to get down on your belly and give them 50 push-ups for bad writing. "Drop and give me fifty, maggot! Your pacing's all off, your main character is flat and uninteresting, your plot devices are befuddling, and the whole friggin' story is 30,000 words too long! And if you so much as think about writing one more incomprehensible metaphor, I'll punch your plot down your premise, that's if you had either!" (This is definitely what you need.)
But fear not! There's some excellent writing advice to be found all over that thing called the Internet. And it's absolutely free! There's articles, pamphlets, forums, treatises, and essays galore, all over the information superhighway (not to mention—ahem—all the blogs out there). Read 'em. Just digest two or three of 'em per day. Chances are good that there will always be something in there you can use in your writing, perhaps that very same day. Feeling down, hung up, stuck, blocked, hemmed in, trapped, or defeated by your work-in-progress? Type your problem into Google (or Bing, if you're a sucker for punishment)! Look it up! Writing's been around for thousands of years. You're not the first person to have a problem with it. Thousands, perhaps millions of others have had similar problems, and the odds are that one or two of them decided to write a helpful article about it.

In conclusion (this is starting to sound like an essay, isn't it?), all you need to do to improve your writing and get comfortable in the saddle is remember the three R's: readin', (w)ritin' and research. Practice your art, read that of others, and research the tips and tricks of the trade. In case you're wondering, I wrote this post in less than an hour on a quiet Sunday morning. Where'd I get the inspiration, you ask? Good question. I originally sat down to commence relating my adventures in the U.K. and Ireland to you. But—who'd a' thunk it? I didn't know where to begin.