Writers Write
We hear this all the time. When I was a creative writing major at Creative and Performing Arts High School in Philadelphia, we were told that we should write something every day. Anything. Journal entry, poem, short story, essay, it didn’t matter as long as we wrote something. Writing was like working out, we were told. If you didn’t keep exercising that writing muscle, it would atrophy. To become a better writer, just like becoming a better athlete, we had to keep exercising – keep writing. I still believe this to be true. It’s still the advice I give my own son as he endeavors to complete his first novel. Just write every day. Writers write. Just get words on the page. Don’t worry about making it pretty. That’s what editing is for. Make it pretty later. Tell the story now.
Ray Bradbury was quoted as saying: “Write a thousand words a day and in three years you will be a writer.”
A thousand words a day. 850 words a day. The number is arbitrary. The commitment is what matters.
I remember reading an article in Writer’s Digest back in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s that said something to the effect of every writer has a million bad words they need to get out of their system before they start writing anything worth reading, and the sooner they write out all that nonsense, the sooner they can get to the stuff that’s really worth publishing.
David Eddings put it this way:
"My advice to the young writer is likely to be unpalatable in an age of instant successes and meteoric falls. I tell the neophyte: Write a million words–the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.”
I don’t think you should throw it away. Turn your back on it, yes. But one day, when you are a better writer, go back and revisit that early garbage. Sometimes you find gems in that discarded refuse. Definitely do not write one novel or short story, submit it, and then sit around waiting to hear if it’s accepted. Write that novel, submit it, and then immediately begin writing the next one. Rinse and repeat. The same goes for poetry and short stories.
These axioms are not absolute truths, but I took them as such when I was coming up. I wrote two complete novels and countless short stories and poems before I considered myself truly ready for publication. Then I went back and rewrote them all and submitted them once I thought I knew what I was doing. If you’ve been doing this for a while I’m sure you laughed at that last part. We never truly know what we are doing. Not for many many years anyway. No matter how prepared we think we are, our first published works are almost always embarrassments.
When I began writing Yaccub’s Curse, I could barely remember the rules of grammar. I had been writing poetry for years and hadn’t written a serious short story since high school. I consulted Strunk and White and picked up books by other authors, reading novels like they were technical manuals, just to see how they used commas, semicolons, em dashes, and quotation marks. But, while doing that, I was writing. Even though I had no idea what I was doing, I kept putting words on the page. I wrote over a hundred pages in one month, then did the same the next month, and the same the month after that. By the time that novel was complete, it was over a hundred thousand words. Then I rewrote it word for word. I rewrote it again every year for ten years until I had the skill to do it justice. Then I handed it off to an editor I trusted, the late Dave Barnett of Necro Publications. By then I’d already had two novels, a short story collection, and a couple novellas published. But, I didn’t really start calling myself a writer until that novel was finished. I called myself a poet because I had written and performed poetry, but I wasn’t a real writer yet. I had to put the work in. I had to write out those million bad words.
Writers write.
Social media has changed my perception on that a bit. Writing an angry Facebook post about Donald Trump or Joe Biden isn’t the same as writing a short story or a poem or a couple thousand words in your new manuscript. I wouldn’t even add this blog post to my daily word count, though it took me a couple hours to write it. I even had to do a little research to look up that Ray Bradbury quote. But that doesn’t get my novel any closer to completion. It doesn’t get the poem or short story that I need to write written either. All writing is not created equal.
Allow me to clarify, before you let the slings and arrows fly. If non-fiction is your preferred medium, then something like this blog post would definitely count. That’s you doing you. But, not social media. Writing a controversial post on Twitter or Facebook and responding to a dozen or so comments is distraction, not production. It isn’t honing your craft. Unless you are responding in colorful metaphors and beautiful creative similes, or writing lush poetic descriptions of the meal you just made or the vacation you just took, or telling a story about the antics of your cat that has a clear beginning, middle, and end with some witty dialogue thrown in, posting on social media is not making you a better writer. It’s keeping you from becoming a better writer.
But, here’s my caveat to that statement: writing is both an art and a business and connecting with readers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. helps your business. So, for most of us, it’s a necessary evil.
Does it sound like I’m contradicting myself? Not all. Being a professional writer means setting time aside for your craft, your art, and for your business. Use social media to promote yourself. Designate time for it just like you should for your writing. And when that time is up, shut it off and get some real writing done. Writers write.