I’ve been gradually reading through The Guardian’s Ten Rules For Writing Fiction:
“Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray. Inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing, we asked authors for their personal dos and don’ts.”
Here’s a link.
It’s really fun stuff, and much of it is very helpful.
Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.
– Roddy Doyle (He’s British, he can spell favorite that way if he wants to.)
Having completed my taxes, I read these first and last rules by Hilary Mantel:
1. Are you serious about this? Then get an accountant. …
10. Be ready for anything. Each new story has different demands and may throw up
reasons to break these and all other rules. Except number one: you can’t give your soul
to literature if you’re thinking about income tax.
Oh, well, now she tells me. But it’s alright, since I’m not sure I buy the premise that I’m reasonably expected to give my soul to literature, or anything else on any given day.
I’m just a pilgrim and a stranger, passing through this worrisome land.
Besides, I wasn’t thinking about income tax. If I had been thinking about it, it would have been done in February.
Here we find some sensible tips from Esther Freud:
2. A story needs rhythm. Read it aloud to yourself. If it doesn’t spin a bit of magic, it’s
missing something.3. Editing is everything. Cut until you can cut no more. What is left often springs into
life.4. Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don’t let anything else interfere.
Afterwards it won’t matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.5. Don’t wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key.
Good tips for process there. I do read aloud to myself. A habit picked up in writing poetry. I think good writing is a form of music; it shouldn’t be too shy to sing.
I take editing pretty seriously; at least, I’m getting better at it. But the other 2 rules I’ve quoted there, at those I don’t do so well. Which brings me finally to the point.
What steps do you take to achieve what all the writing professors on the planet have agreed is the most important thing, keeping the writer’s ass in the writer’s chair?
I had a prof who used to write A – I – C in big letters across the chalkboard – “Ass In Chair!” Or maybe it was On chair, or Ass + Chair. It doesn’t matter. It really is something they tell you, though. Just keep at it, don’t get distracted, don’t give up. You can google it.
Neil Gaiman’s first 3 rules are
1. Write.
2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
And Neil is no slouch. Prolific, he is. And he’s had some success for himself, especially in the past year. So one should pay heed, is my point.
I don’t take any special steps for keeping ass on chair. I make myself no promises. Dust in the wind, born on the vicissitudes of the unwinding day. … Perhaps I exaggerate. I have some self discipline, but no schedule.
One of the most strident rules I’ve heard over the years, “make time to do it every day,” gets thoroughly blown off around here. But it makes sense. A musician doesn’t skip a day of practice, right? Every day, that’s how you keep your chops.
So what do you do and what do you don’t? Do you set a schedule? Write in the morning? Unplug the phone? Unplug the Internet? Take a 12-gauge to the TV? Put your pet possum down for a nap? What works?
The second most important writing rule is “Read!” We’ll cover that another time. For now, 2 more from Gaiman:
6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have
to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the
horizon. Keep moving.
8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence,
you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for
writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written.
Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules.
Not ones that matter.
But why? you ask. It's wonderful! It's the best thing since fitted underwear in the whole wide world!
OK, here's why. I don't think computer companies, or car companies, or toaster companies for that matter, should feel entitled to spew forth new wonderments until they by golly work the bugs, kinks, gliches, pings, knocks, hang-ups, shut-downs, speed-ups, etc., etc., out of the stuff they've already been making.
This morning, just as an abject example, I started up my 2009 HP Phenomenal X4 Pavilion computer with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. Normally, an excellent device. I'm telling you folks, the thing was running whacky. Nutty. Spazz-o.
Word was working, and Firefox. But when I clicked on desktop icons, the computer essentially said, "you can't touch that." The start menu and the program toolbar were non-functional. I rebooted using ctrl-alt-del, because the start menu wouldn't work. No help. I shut down with ctrl-alt-del and everything was OK. But I got to start my day with adrenaline and confusion instead of caffeine and Google News, which makes me a grumpy puppy.
Guess what! HP is coming out with a new tablet PC to compete with the iPad. You saw it here first, as far as I know.
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Seriously, from one generation of technology to the next, they run full speed into spreading puddles of FAIL, and they're in such a rush to get to the next puddle, they don't even notice how muddy they are. And who's urging them on, faster and faster? We are.
This blogger thinks it's time to think more about what's useful to us on a daily basis, slow down, make it well, enjoy it, and dream a bit before we plunge.
But Kyle, why title the post China Syndrome? Well, one reason is obvious. Another is that if I'd called it Resentment Over the Obdurately Accelerating Pace of Tech Innovation, you wouldn't have read it.
Metaphor 