28May/100

Tip #2: Writing for Its Own Sake

At the Eckerd College Writers Conference, Stewart O'Nan told us something interesting. It's much healthier, he said, to enjoy the private side of reading and writing. You do it because you love it. Not because you want to write something people want to read. You write something you want to read and then if other people want to read it, well, that's great, but it's not the point. What struck me the most though was the word he used in the next sentence: "Publishing," he said, "is extracurricular."

As the author of more than ten novels, Stewart knows what he's talking about. He holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from Cornell. You can read about his tenth novel in The New York Times profile of him and his book, Last Night at the Lobster, by clicking here.

Stewart pressed that he didn't mean publishing was unimportant. But I think he's right that the writing is more important (maybe that's self-aggrandizing or naive, but I really don't feel like it is). It is better to worry about the story for yourself. Don't think about focus groups and marketing. Embrace the vivid and continuous dream and see if the writing you're doing creates that dream for you. Go deeper into the dream, use it to make the story stronger. If you write something good enough, you will eventually get it published. One of the mistakes writers make, I think, is trying to get their books out too soon.

In short, it's better to enjoy the private side of reading and writing. Publishing is important, but it is not the point. Writing is a job, but it's a job you do for yourself and hopefully in the end you make some money.

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25May/100

Tip #1: One Piece At a Time

In Ernest Hemingway on Writing, I read a small comment Hemingway once made, which I'll now paraphrase. Basically, Hemingway said, it takes me all morning to write a paragraph, 500 words. This made him doubt whether he'd ever be able to write something as long as a novel. In fact, Hemingway is remembered for his short stories, but his novels are also much lauded, including A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Old Man and The Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls. That last, actually, weighs in at over 500 pages in the edition sitting on my bookshelf right now. So, with a careful eye for language and an obsessive habit of re-writing (most if not all writers have this, to a greater or lesser extent), how did Hemingway finally write something so long?

My theory is that he wrote the books "one piece at a time," the same way Johnny Cash got his Cadillac in the song of the same name. A sentence here, then another, and another. One chapter at a time, maybe; the first chapter of For Whom the Bell Tolls is only 17 pages, which is maybe, I think, 2 short stories worth of writing. Not much happens except the young man (Robert Jordan) and the old man (Anselmo) inspect the mill-house. Then they climb on and meet Pablo, who becomes one of the novel's more troubling characters. There is also a 4 page flashback (!) where Robert Jordan remembers his conversation with the Russian, Golz, who has sent him on this mission. That's pretty much it. The setting is detailed; the people are detailed. The central conflict of the novel (blowing up the bridge) is pretty well established.

For me, when working on a novel, the sheer vastness of it can be daunting, this goal of putting a hundred thousand words in a cunning order. A hundred thousand words! But if you take, say, 3,000 words, then, by God, maybe you can get something done. In the example I've given above, think how much longer For Whom the Bell Tolls is than its first 17 pages, and how much more complex. If you're a novelist, and you're struggling with the vastness, the emptiness of those pages you need to fill, then slow down, be calm, and remember to write one word at a time, one piece at a time, or, as Anne Lamott suggests in her book on writing, bird by bird.

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19May/100

The Hemingway Solution

Two years ago compiled a plan on how I would write and, because of a quote in a Stephen King book, I called it "The Other Hemingway Solution." This step-by-step process, which describes how I write, may be helpful to other writers. That's why I'm posting it again. I distilled these tips from Hemingway's letters (reprinted in Ernest Hemingway On Writing).

The Hemingway Solution:

  • Wake up early and work hard once you're up. Don't read anything but the paper, because you don't want to work with all the giants of literature looking over your shoulder. Just write or work until you wear out mentally. This should be a little after lunch, maybe 1:30 or 2 pm.
  • Always stop writing when you know what will happen next. If you do that, and let your mind work on the story while you sleep, you will never be stuck.
  • Eat lunch, something healthy.
  • Physical exercise is next. Wear out your body and make yourself so exhausted that you can't think about your writing. Hemingway would fish and box, among other things. Anything will do.
  • Read literature and catch up on your correspondence. Wait to check your e-mail until late in the day, just before or just after dinner. Find a good book and read it slowly.
  • Don't think about the writing when you're not writing. This may be the hardest step. But endless plotting, dissecting, musing, and especially talking (to friends, to lovers, to family) will kill a book. It will shrivel up and die on you. This is not a joke.
  • Spend time with that special someone who matters to you. As Hemingway once wrote, "I believe that basically you write for two people; yourself to try to make it absolutely perfect; or if not that then wonderful. Then you write for who you love whether she can read or write or not and whether she is alive or dead."
  • Go to sleep. Repeat Hemingway's Solution in the morning.
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