How else can money motivate you? Well, it could just be the dream of wads of cash. Maybe you’re writing your novel in hopes of hitting the New York Times bestseller list and earning a gazillion dollars à la J.R. Ward. I wish you luck (you’re going to need it), but if that motivates you, go ahead and use it.
When I started writing romance novels, it was a get rich quick scheme — I admit it. My first novel was written solely motivated by daydreams of being an author, with my own pink feather boa, eating bon-bons and dictating my brilliance to my faithful assistant, who would do all that un-fun stuff, like typing and revising. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was a stupid get rich quick scheme, because there was nothing quick about it (and, really, nothing rich either), but it got me through my first rough draft. So if daydreaming and fantasizing is what makes you do the work, I’m not going to tell you to stop.
Haters
Know what else can motivate you? Haters.
Have you ever had someone tell you that you can’t do something? For some people (like Sonja), that just sort of beats them down and makes them feel like shit, but for some people (like Lisa), it’s hella motivating. It makes you want to succeed just so you can show that motherfucker just how much awesomer you are than they ever gave you credit for.
If that works for you, use it. Think of the scoffers and the people who tell you you’ll never make it. Think of that rotten kid in elementary school who called you a stupid stink-face. Whatever. Just make it work.
Now, here’s my caveat. In order to preserve your personal relationships, you probably shouldn’t be thinking about someone you come into contact with regularly, like your spouse, for example. If your spouse is the nay-sayer, you’ll probably want to examine the whys behind that and then sit down and have a conversation about it, not stew silently with an “I’ll show you” mindset.
But if it’s a kid from elementary school, or a former boss, or a teacher from long ago? Show ‘em what you’re made of.
Cheer Squads
Of course, you can also use other people as your motivator in a more mature and psychologically healthy way. You can surround yourself with like-minded badasses with common or similar goals who want to help each other out. Get yourself a cheer squad!
The easiest way to do this is in a community built for what you’re trying to achieve. Is there a professional organization for your particular type of writing? Join it and network. (I’m a member of the Romance Writers of America, and my local chapter is an amazing resource not only for education, but also for motivation.)
Another great pre-built community I plugged in to early on was the NaNoWriMo.org forum. If you’re not familiar with National Novel Writing Month (Where have you been?) it’s a popular write-a-novel-in-a-month project. Some of my awesomest writing buds are from my first year as a NaNoer.
There are like a million other clubs and groups like this, either online or in person. Find one and plug in. See what you can contribute, because the more you put in, the more you get out. Groups like these work because of a pre-stated common goal, and they are super powerful motivators.
Can’t find one? Make one. Maybe you only want to talk to full-time mommy bloggers in the metro Cleveland area and you can’t find an already-formed group. You have the Internet. You can type. So make a group on whatever platform you like, invite people, and get something going!
Assignment 2: Get Your Ideas Out of Your Head (and Onto Paper)
If you already know exactly what your idea for a book is, you can skip on ahead to the next section. If you're still struggling, use the check-sheet and exercises below to help you get your ideas out of your head and onto a piece of paper where you can work with them some.
1. Jot down the wonderful, stupid, half-formed, or brilliant ideas for your book you’ve been contemplating.
Nail down those ideas for books that have been floating in your head. Don’t censor them, just get them down on paper. If a nice stiff drink helps prevent you from writing down the ugly, have one. Have two. Now no more excuses, because no one will ever see this. You're safe. Write ‘em down.
2. Nothing yet? Do the mix-n-match exercise from the "Your Big Idea" section.
Write down the kinds of books you love to read. Be very specific. If it’s books where the little guy overcomes incredible obstacles to prove to the world he’s a force to be reckoned with, write that down. If you love non-fiction, write down which kinds make your brain hum happy tunes.
Write down why you love to read those books. Because of a certain way they make you feel? Write it down. Because of the orderly numbered lists and bullet points? Make a note of that. Because they give you hope for love in the world after the apocalypse? You know what to do.
Write down the elements you love from the books you read. Pirates? Beautiful, poetic descriptions of nature? Second chances? Vampires? Lengthy monologues on the nature of humanity? Magic? Court intrigue? Clear explanations for how to master specific skills?
Play the mix-n-match game with the three piles of items. Betcha an idea for a book you would absolutely love to write comes up
3. Still nothing? Try these ideas on for size.
Name five people who have dramatically influenced your life. Could you interview them about it, and make the interviews into a book?
Name five skills you’ve learned in the past 10 years. How did you learn those skills? Could you write about it?
List all the journals, blog posts, articles, or other things you’ve written or recorded. What interesting stories from those things could you make into a book?
Write down your favorite or most-hated book or movie. Could you write a response, fanfic, or variation on it?
What skill or practice have you always been interested in, but never really learned? Could you decide to learn that skill, and write a book about it as you progress?
What’s the weirdest, worst, or craziest thing you’ve ever done? Have other people done that, too? Is there a story there?
4. Take a look at the results of these exercises. Now choose the top three and put them in priority order.
Don't worry about choosing the “right” one. It’s more important to simply get started with an idea. You can always go back and try one of the others later.
CHAPTER THREE
The IRONCLAD RULES of Writing, and Why Most of Them Are Crap
Good thing you got to this chapter, because we didn’t want you to just go gallivanting off to… to… write something before we laid down the rules, bucko. Here they are.
Rules We Spit On… er, Politely Disregard
1. Never copy others.
When I was in first grade I got a writing assignment I adored: Write a story, anything you want. This was the sort of thing that turned my otherwise heavy bones to fairy dust and made me believe I could fly. I loved it! So I found one of my favorite tales (I think it was about a mouse) from a recent Weekly Reader and carefully wrote my own slightly modified fanfic version. I worried that it was too long, because mine ran several pages, where my fellow students’ stories were a paragraph or so. I turned it in and eagerly awaited my own copy of the class book, which would include a purple-inked, wonderfully smelly mimeograph of each mini-human’s story. As it turned out, my story was the last one in the book, which I thought was marvelous. Save the best for last!
Imagine the the deep mental scarring (or at least the indignant fury) I experienced when my beloved teacher had the entire class turn to the end of our carefully collated and stapled together books and instructed everyone to “tear out the last story and throw it in the trash.” Yep. She’d belatedly read our Weekly Reader, and publicly penalized me for “copying.”
It’s okay, I have forgiven her. But it set me back a good week or so in my early writing career.
I’m making jokes about it (cheaper than therapy), but it’s true I didn’t yet know the more subtle rules of copying something you love, although as it turned out I spent a lot of time learning to copy when I went to art school
many years later. I was deeply gratified and validated to learn that the single best way to train an artist is to have them spend years copying the greats.
The rule is not “never copy others.” It’s “only copy the best.” (If you’ve been forced to read any of the 50 Shades of Grey atrocities, you already know this.) And of course, there are subtleties. But try not to let that keep you from writing when you first get going; if there’s a kind of book or author you adore — say, Tolkien — then resolve to write the most incredible and inspiring Tolkien-type book in the world, in tribute to your hero.
2. Only write what you KNOW about.
Here’s another early writer trauma story for you. About the time I became a tween-ager, I discovered Natalie Wood and the 1961 musical film West Side Story. (This is going to be another “copying” story, get ready.) I decided that gang violence and falling in love were the most powerful forces in the universe and I wrote my own 6-page version of West Side Story about two gang leaders fighting in a back alley, then becoming friends. It was going to be the first installment of a whole incredible series. People would be amazed and inspired! Maybe Natalie Wood would ask to act in the musical version!
When I showed my amazing and inspiring story to its first adult reader, she handed me back my raggedy spiral notebook with a good-natured chuckle and a shake of the head. “You should only write about things you know about,” she told me.
If I’d taken her advice I would have ripped out my story and turned to writing short, angry lists of the things I could no longer eat now that I was wearing braces.
It’s okay, I have forgiven her. But it set me back yet another week, and I’ll never get those two weeks of my writing career back now, will I?
Here’s what you need to know: You can learn about damn near anything. And then write about it. No, you don’t have to join a gang (the writers of West Side Story surely hadn’t), but you can research it. Read what others have written. Consult people. Then write about it.
Before I got established well in the women's interest field, I was paid to write thousands of words about how to secure an asset-based loan, and if I had a client who wanted me to write about the joys of having a leopard gecko as a pet, I could write thousands on that, too. It’s all about the research.
3. You can’t write about _________ in the _________ genre.
If you’re a fiction author, you’re going to run into that one right quick, especially if you are writing popular fiction (romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy). Here’s one of my favorites: You can’t write about sports stars in romance. Let’s just take that “rule” as an example, shall we?
Now it is true that there aren’t too many contemporary romance novels about professional athletes. Part of this might be that it’s hard to write about celebrities and other public figures because they don’t live normal, relatable lives like the other characters in your book presumably do.
But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.
I read a romance novel once about a super-successful and famous professional golfer and his formerly rich debutante girlfriend who had remade herself into a “regular girl.” Sounds far-fetched, right? So probably no one read it and it languished in the mid-list until it went out of print, right?
Wrong. Susan Elizabeth Phillips, one of the most successful and popular romance writers of all time, wrote that book. It's called Fancy Pants. It was a New York Times bestseller.
4. You need inspiration in order to write.
If you join a writers group (which you should), it probably won’t be long before you hear someone loudly complaining that her muse hasn’t bothered to visit in x amount of time. Basically, this is her telling you that she needs to be inspired (by her muse or whatever) before she can really write anything.
This is patently false. I’m not going to tell you that too many of these rules are patently false, because most of them have a grain of truth to them, but it is absolutely, distinctly not true that you have to be inspired in order to write.
You probably do want to have some sort of idea of what you’re trying to write, but even that isn’t necessary. (For more on that, check out Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. Fuck, you don’t need a damn thing in order to write, according to her.) What you definitely don’t need is a sprinkle of fairy dust.
What you do need is some motivation (see the previous chapter, if you skipped it) and some butt-in-chair time.
Lemme tell you about mules for a sec. I love mules. They are sturdy little bastards. I don’t care how fugly you think they are, they are patient, strong, and independent-minded (polite word for “stubborn”), and they will flat get the work done.
That’s the kind of writer I am. I first realized this when I heard Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk about her own rather mundane source of creative genius.
If you haven’t already seen this one, you must watch it! (The “mule” part comes about 11 minutes in, but if you’re a creative — and you are — invest 20 minutes and watch the entire thing.)
I don’t walk around just waiting and hoping to be sparkled with inspirational fairy dust. Um, actually I do, but the way I get work done is by showing up and writing — a mule plowing the field — Every. Damn. Day.
Well, most days. Sometimes I get a little burr under my saddle and I honk and bray and gallop off in search of wild romp or a mouthful of something delicious and forbidden with friends, some of whom are as mulishly awkward as I am.
Make a little progress every day, and laze away your off days. Be stubborn, sturdy, and hard working. Embrace your inner mule. Hug her and pet her and bring her apples and tell her she smells fabulous. Where would you be without that gal?
5. In fiction, each scene must be from one character’s point of view (POV).
False. Nora Roberts (probably most famous romance author ever) sometimes does practically each paragraph in a different character’s POV. It works for her.
6. Dream sequences are lazy and dumb.
I think dream sequences and flashbacks are good and even necessary sometimes, despite the fact that you will have some authors who run away screaming at even the mention of dream sequences and flashbacks (and prologues and adverbs and a huge list of other things).
Rules We (Usually) Don't Break
1. Rules clients pay us to follow.
If you’re getting paid to write, you better damn well do what the paying client wants. It only makes sense. Don’t be a rebel when your paycheck depends on following the rules.
2. Rules that publishers and genres require.
Lots of publishers and genres have rules that you need to follow. Let’s just say, for example, that you’re submitting to Harlequin’s Desire line. You're going to want to know that they like 50,000-word high-drama stories with asshole heroes. (And in this case, “asshole” is my shorthand for “alpha.” Desire wants really manly, rich heroes with attitude problems — but hearts of gold underneath it all. They tend to come across as assholes, at least in the first couple chapters.) And you’re going to want to write one like that if you want to get published with Harlequin Desire. It’s a fact of life, dear, and you know what? It doesn’t make you less of an artist or less creative to follow the rules in this case. You are writing to a prompt, sure, but creating a great story that follows the rules of the prompt makes you more creative, not less. So get on with your bad self.
3. Basic grammar and punctuation rules.
This is just for clarity, mostly. We write in sentence fragments all. The. Time. So the point here is: Know the rules of grammar so that when you break them, you actually know what you’re doing.
Don't Let the Rules Break Your Kneecaps
If you’ve been in the writing/publishing industry for any time at all, even just to dip your toe in, you’ve probably had rules lobbed at you from the moment you opened your damn mouth to ask for advice.
Writers love rules, and it kind of makes sense. Writing is pretty touchy-feely, after all, and without rules, it w
ould just be chaos. I mean, what if no one followed the rules about normal punctuation? All of our novels would look like my 12-year-old niece’s text conversations. And that would not do.
I got really stuck on all the rules when I joined Romance Writers of America. I love rules. I’m a follower. But it is damned near impossible to follow all the rules, and it takes your natural voice and busts it to smithereens.
It’s a hard balance to strike and I had to write a lot of really incredibly crappy stuff before I found my rhythm again. So I’m warning you about the rules so the same thing won’t happen to you.
There are some rules that you need to know, and then can safely ignore, because you know why they are rules and you know how you can break them.
Go break some rules, you rebel, you.
CHAPTER FOUR
2 Amazing Tools Every Writer Should Have (And More You Don't Really Need)
You know what? You don't really need any of these tools to write your book. You can write your book in a Word doc and then print it to a PDF and ship that motherfucker. (Lisa's done it.) You can write your draft on a yellow legal pad. (Sonja's done it.) We don't want you to get stuck on tools, because you don't really need anything but your imagination and a writing implement. But we still like all this shit, so here ya go.
We've found that we use Scrivener and Google Drive or Google Sites the absolute most when we’re writing, and we think you should have them. Everything else is really just a suggestion.
Bagels, Dirty Limericks, and Martinis: The Badass Guide to Writing Your First Book (Badass Writing) Page 3
