Jen's Writing Journey

I feel a little like I’m cheating because I discussed Stephen King’s On Writing before, but I hadn’t finished it then.

King’s book is a combination memoir and writing guide. At first it seemed odd to combine these two types of books. From a financial standpoint, two books means more income. But about halfway into the first of the seven disks, I had completely forgotten my objections. The stories are inextricably intertwined, as King started writing and submitting stories from a young age.

The most compelling moment was when King told of selling the paperback rights to his first novel, Carrie. He was expecting the deal to be between $10K and $50K. Instead, it was for $400K. He and his wife had been barely scraping by since they got married, so the paycheck came just in time.

After spending a little more than a third of the book on his life story so far, he gets into the nitty gritty of writing. He touches on writing craft, giving general rules and then allowing writers to break them, as long as they do so with clear purpose and for good effect. He shares his hatred of adverbs and gives a good description of how to set up a space and schedule for writing. He peppers his discussion with scenes from his family life–it is obvious that he believes he owes his wife a huge debt for supporting his dream and for putting up with him all these years.

He provides a particularly useful tip for beginning writers that should help get you to a novel that is ready to show to an editor or agent: Write furiously to capture the story, using a “closed door” approach to your manuscript. No one else is to see it, and you aren’t to go back and futz over it. Just get the story on paper/screen. Then set it aside for a time while you work on other things or completely ignore writing. Let it rest long enough that you aren’t thinking about it, wondering what you could have done differently in this paragraph or reveling in the glory of your final scene. Then go back to it as if it were new to you. Read it, in one sitting if possible, proofreading and noting plot holes, characterization issues, and the like. At this point, you can also begin soliciting input from your trusted early readers, your friends, your spouse, your critique group, whoever you prefer. He calls this the “open door” phase.

As a beginning fiction writer myself, I find that if I take too much time off from my “closed door” phase, I have to re-read what I have written and futz over it needlessly to try to get myself back into the story. I will heed King’s words and begin again the process of capturing the errant thoughts as they appear in my mind. There’s plenty of time for editing later.

• Writing Roundup, July 24 The Business of Writing Ain't That a Shame Author Justine Larbalestier shares her thoughts on the cover for her book Liar. The protagonist is African American, but the girl shown on the cover is White. Larbalastier campaigned strongly for a different cover, but she did not win that battle. What......
• Writing Roundup, July 10 I hope you are all having as productive a month as you would like it to be. This seems like such a good time to take a breather and go light on the writing projects. Not me, I always seem to have big deadlines in the summer. Maybe next year,......
• Writer’s Movies I was watching Down with Love last weekend, and it got me thinking about how many movies and TV shows there are about writers. And most of them are a pretty idealized view of writers. Here are some of my favorites.Down with LoveWhenever I stayed home sick, I watched TBS.......
• I'm a Kreativ Blogger I got a wonderful comment on Monday's blog post from Rebecca Emerich, whose blog Living a Life of Writing has been featured in my weekly Writing Roundup quite a few times. Rebecca is a prolific blogger who maintains three distinct blogs and posts on her writing blog daily--even on the......
• Writing Roundup The past week was full of more bad news in the media. But I had one bright point: the Writer's Market website appears to be back up and running. My suggestion is to use Internet Explorer or Safari instead of Firefox.Anyway, here's your roundup to get the week started.Media Angst:......

• The Weakonomist Reads A Book: Predictably Irrational I love behavioral economics, the study of how thoughts and emotions influence our decisions.  My specific interest is in behavioral finance, which would be how...
• The Art of Writing Advertising | Bernback, Gribbin, Reeves, Ogilvy, Burnett Notes from the book The Art of Writing Advertising William Bernback I wouldn’t go for too routinized men in my copy department. Original and fresh....
• Character Development – A Journey of Discovery By Christine Clemetson, guest blogger When creating characters, one technique for some authors is to do extensive character development before the actual writing of the...
• Top 15 Ways to Save Money on Heating Your House During another cold winter, your top priority is keeping warm on those long, frosty days, and the even longer frosty nights. However, when your power...
• What Is The Best Opportunity Today To Write Romance And Research Romance How To Write Re Research Romance The Character's Love Life Romance novels are stories that centre around research romance how people fell in love, how they fall out of love and how they have lived...