How ’bout an update on my writing, since it’s been eight months or so?!
The last time I blogged, I had just finished wrestling underwater with a giant, amorphous bloblike creature and had finished the first draft of my memoir about my dad. Immediately afterwards, I:
- Attended a writing conference on Finding My Voice in October;
- Put down my memoir for three months to edit a book from my old job;
- Picked up my memoir again after the winter holidays;
- Attended a writing conference on How to Market My Book in April;
- Read an excellent book on writing technique;
- Set up this nifty new website;
- Celebrated when Field Guide to Wisconsin Streams, the long-awaited book from my old job, was finally published (also see Books!); and
- Finished the next draft of my memoir!
Which brings me to my topic for today.
How to Write Like an Athlete
More than anything, these last eight months have been about learning the craft of writing. A writer friend said it well: “The first draft is about you. All the other drafts are about your audience.”
I had gotten my story onto the page at last, but if I ever wanted to get it published, my book still had a long way to go.
The process of learning how to write was unnerving at first. I thought I already knew how to write. I’d been told as much since grade school—friends and family told me I should be a writer, which puffed up my writing ego. I had always enjoyed putting words on the page.
But I had never written for an audience before, not really. Not (gulp) strangers.
When I took my first few pages to a critique group at October’s conference, they gently tore the pages limb from limb. I used “be” verbs too much (“The carpet was dirty”). I needed more action words instead (“A film of grime blanketed the rug”). I did too much telling (“It was raining hard”) and not enough showing (“The rain drummed on the pavement, forming rivers along the gutters”). My technique was distancing. They weren’t hooked by my first scene, which wasn’t really a scene but more like an introduction. And they were confused by my prologue, which had nothing to do with the first chapter.
After the critique group, I slunk, trembling, to a gathering at a friend’s house where I had planned to meet Ron. I confessed to him and the others that I might start crying. I slept a few hours, then awoke at 3 a.m. full of anger at the mean, insensitive people in my critique group. Where were their manners? Didn’t they know how to give positive feedback, like I had so thoughtfully given to them?
After an hour of mentally berating them, I started turning their words over in my mind. Actually, they did have a few points. I really ought to look again at my book’s beginning.
In fact, when you got down to it, everything they said was right.
By 5 a.m. I was sitting at the dining room table, writing excitedly.
Over Christmas I devoured Techniques of the Selling Writer, an old-fashioned, sexist, formulaic book that was a godsend for learning writing basics. These were the things I would have learned decades ago, if I’d ever bothered to take a creative writing class.
Show, don’t tell. Keep the story moving forward with each sentence. Make it clear what’s motivating your characters.
By late spring, when I finished the next draft of my book, I could tell the difference on every page.
The book is still far from ready to publish. I can see that clearly—glancing through it, I see the mistakes and the holes, the many things I still need to fix. But I can see them now. I’m studying. I’m learning the tools of the trade, and I actually know how to fix a lot of the problems I find.
Best of all, I can see that this draft is much, much better than the first one.
When I explain what I’m learning to Ron, I use a sports analogy. He’s a natural athlete, but with each new sport he picks up—soccer, ultimate frisbee—he needs years to learn the techniques. Writing is like that. There is natural talent, which you have if you’re lucky, and then there’s technique. Perhaps the more talented you are the less technique you need, but the more I learn about technique, the more I believe it will benefit anyone. It is certainly benefiting me.
I thought I might be one of those lucky writers who can just trust their instincts, whose words spill out of the ether, through the pen, and onto the page. But the more writers I meet and the more writing wisdom I read, the more I see that such writers are basically myths.
Even if they do exist, the folks who make it look effortless learned technique somewhere, too, from good teachers or stern critics. And the real, live masters actually work quite hard to perfect their phrasing.
As in sports, natural talent will only get you so far. To be good, you have to put in the sweat, tears, practice, and study.
My next conference is in just a few weeks. This time other writers will see my whole book, not just a few pages. We’ll join forces for a week and learn from each other, and I can sense the excitement bursting forth from their pre-class emails. We’re all in this together.
