As I mentioned in a comment on one of the guys’ posts, I got so busy I let yet another Wednesday pass me by and missed Wobert Wednesday. Again.
Since the boys are talking writing this week, I wanted to throw my Fedora into the ring as well.
As both have mentioned, Frannie and I have been working on novels for some time. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between the novel and several non-fiction projects actually, so I have one foot set firmly in both worlds for now. As far as actual manuscripts go, I’ve finished a draft of two non-fiction books, a quarter of another and half of a fiction book. Word count is probably 100K for the non-fictions and about 50K for the fiction so far.
As Francis says, writers write because it’s a compulsion. Or to put it more simply: Writers write. Period. If you are or aspire to be something, you must do the thing. I can’t be a painter if I don’t paint. I can’t be a programmer if I don’t code. I can’t BE something if I’m not DOing it.
Like most any vocation, there is an internal component to being a writer. you have to be disposed toward it. Fiction or non. Poetry, plays, songs, comics, technical manuals, essays, polemics, TV shows or movies. Doesn’t matter. That disposition is the kernel, or seed, of the writer you may one day become.
All of us write in some fashion or another. Marty has long been a master of the quip and pithy comment that usually spurs further discussion. A well placed question or observation. He’s very good at that. As he says, Social Media is no longer enough to hold his thoughts and words though, so we’re encouraging him to take flight. Even Wilbur and Orville only flew about 100 feet that first time over 100 years ago. Now billionaires launch themselves into space for no other reason that to thumb their noses at other billionaires it seems.
How far we’ve come. How far we’ve fallen? Either way, different discussion.
All of us blog here as a writing outlet. For myself, I use it to explore deeper questions mostly. Sometimes not. For all of us one of the most paramount things is the craft though. As Francis points out, we talk about it a lot in all things. A thing well done is a wonder to behold. The problem with aspiring writers is that we too often look at a really good composition and despair, thinking “I’ll never write that well.”
Not if you don’t get started you won’t. Stephen King is a master of the written word. Snooty types used to denigrate him early on as a hack and low-brow. It probably got worse the more money he made. But if you’ve read him as long as I have, nearly since the beginning, you’ll see the evolution of the writer. He has truly mastered the craft.
Why?
Because he sits down every day and writes. Every damn day except Christmas and his birthday. That’s 363 days a year, not counting Leap Years. Even if he only averaged 1000 words a day, that’s the equivalent of three good sized novels. Or almost one full King novel. When you’re Stephen King, I don’t think you get edited for length as much as you used to. Famous authors’ later books are always longer than their earlier ones.
Again, I digress. The point is that King ver. 2021 is a hundred times the writer King ver. 1974 was. If looking at someone like him makes you want to give up, look at some of the self published series on Amazon that sell at least a moderate amount. Most are decent books. Many read like amateurs in plot and style. Many have a cardboard voice or are cliches. But then you come across a writer who actually gets better as you read his books. Or you see a collaboration and the guy you’ve read is almost invisible because the other guy is so much more polished than the first. Then that guy’s writing gets better because his craft has leveled up.
That’s the thing. We all start out as hacks. Possibly even low-brow hacks. But by sitting down and doing the damn work, we can be more.
We can be high-brow hacks.
I mean we can become writers, storytellers and true creators.
Writers write.
Writers who keep writing become the Masters.
