Two years ago I got an idea. That night was clich\u00e9d to the point of parody. I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, when suddenly my eyes widened. An idea! I had an idea! And not only that, but I had an idea that literally got me out of bed.<\/p>\n
I sat at my kitchen table, opened my laptop, and began to type. After an hour or so I had a few pages.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d never felt so inspired. I\u2019d finally experienced what \u201creal\u201d writers feel when they say they were just a conduit for the material.\u00a0It just flowed out of me. I couldn\u2019t resist.<\/em><\/p>\n In the morning I read over what I\u2019d done.<\/p>\n I\u2019d never seen a less inspiring lump of words. I\u2019d rather have eaten a handful of broken glass than read another paragraph by someone as dumb as me.<\/p>\n My wonderful idea–which I still thought was dynamite\u2014felt unrecognizable and senseless.<\/p>\n What could I do?<\/p>\n The answer was simple if not glamorous.<\/p>\n I kept going.<\/em><\/p>\n I ignored the pages I\u2019d already written and made the commitment not to revisit them until I\u2019d finished writing.<\/p>\n I made a gigantic mess. I wrote every day. Parts of the story grew clearer, while others remained murky and obstinate. Many would eventually be deleted. New characters appeared. Others vanished and never returned.<\/p>\n One fine evening, I realized I had just finished the first draft. It was just over three hundred pages of… something? But now at least I had a mess to work with. I reworked it once over the next couple of months and sent it to my agent.<\/p>\n I thought I was done.<\/p>\n Ha!\u00a0Nine drafts\u00a0<\/em>and nearly a year later, it was ready to submit to editors. It was a grind, but it was worth it.<\/p>\n Too many of my students never give themselves the chance to make the first initial mess, that hideous first draft. They assume that when it stops feeling fun or inspiring, or when it starts feeling like work, that\u00a0their initial idea must have been bad,\u00a0<\/em>or that\u00a0they\u2019re not good enough writers.<\/em><\/p>\n They\u2019re wrong.<\/p>\n Writing is work. It\u2019s not always fun and inspiring. That\u2019s true for any writer who takes his or her craft seriously.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re starting out, you only have to be good enough–hell, not even good enough, just\u00a0committed\u00a0<\/em>enough–to keep going. How? Keep the pen moving. Type. Do your work. You have to learn to trust the process, though the process might stink, and there are times you\u2019ll want to quit. Don\u2019t. If you want to be a writer, make more words appear on the page. If you really want to write, prove it.<\/p>\n When you get tired of the process or frustrated with it, here is some practical advice to experiment with.<\/p>\nThe Mess<\/h2>\n
The Process<\/h2>\n
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Bringing it All Together<\/h2>\n