Sorting Through the Noise
So you sit down to write, and that’s when you hear it. (Okay, maybe you stand to write, but…really? Are you one of those standing desk people? I’ll bet you have great calves and a resting pulse under 60, but you’re making those of us who would rather write from the horizontal office* look bad. So stop it. At the very least, sit down. At a desk.)
The noise.
No, not your character’s voices. Well, they’re in the mix somewhere, but it’s hard to hear them above the literary agent screaming about why it’s critically important to make your first page shine and the writing expert who keeps repeating the mysterious phrase “economy of words” and the blogger who is whispering something about the evils of adverbs.
All that noise leaves you paralyzed. Frozen. Stuck. And other similar words you can find in a thesaurus. But not because you don’t have good ideas for your novel. You have a bunch of ‘em. And you thought you were ready to lay down a few thousand words.
Well, maybe you were and maybe you weren’t.
If you sat down because you were truly inspired or determined to write, write, write, tell the voices to shut up. Be blunt. Be decisive. They’re good voices (mostly) and they want you to be a better writer, but inspired or determined writing moments are rare and you should really obey this one. Right now it’s not time to listen to writing advice. Put away the how-to books, close the web browser and focus on your novel. Write as well or as badly as you naturally write until you run out of words.
But if you sat down because you were ready to improve your novel, because you wanted to become a better writer, then open your ears to the noisy writing advice. And…give yourself permission not to write thousands of words during this session.
It’s craft time.
Here’s an important tip: When you sort through writing advice, it’s important to measure each bit of apparent wisdom against what you know instinctively (and from experience) about your writer’s voice. Maybe your voice is adverb-friendly. If so, go ahead and use your adverbs, but not before first understanding why writing teachers and experts preach against it. Or consider your wordiness. It could be that you have a verbose voice. That doesn’t mean you’re a terrible writer. There are plenty of successful writers who use a hundred words to say what might have been said in twenty. But again, examine the reason behind the advice.
Consider all advice this same way, always looking for the core truth that sits under the wisdom, then measuring it against your evolving writer’s voice.
Use your craft time to discover what needs improvement and to work on revisions, but also to be reminded what you already do well. Then walk away from the computer and do something else.
The next time you’re ready to write – I mean really write, write, write – all that craft time will pay dividends as the wisdom you gleaned quietly and organically begins to inform your natural writing style.
Or you could just do what I do and ping-pong back and forth between craft time and write, write, write time until you get so frustrated you put aside your novel and choose to write a blogpost instead.
Yeah.
