The Blank Page--Rather Crappy Advice
Feb. 9th, 2007 09:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jpskewedthroneThis is the first of what I hope to be many weekly little pieces about writing (posted on Fridays unless enough of you complain and tell me that you don’t read LJ on Fridays). Tips, advice, mild ramblings, or all-out rants, all on writing. The topics will vary and I make no claims about the advice being good. But it is based on my experiences teaching myself to write and getting my two (soon to be three) novels published. I’d love feedback, so leave comments whether you agree or disagree with what I have to say. If you think I’ve said something worth repeating, feel free to link to my blog, or snip the interesting piece and repeat it in your blog or website with a reference.
Since this is the first post, I figured I’d start at the beginning. I’ll try to keep things mildly organized, but if there’s a particular topic that strikes me one day, that’s probably what I’ll post. Feel free to leave comments on topics you’d like to hear about. I’ll add them to my list and get to them eventually. Thanks for stopping by! And now, the real post. Today’s topic is The Blank Page, my thoughts on how to get started with that novel or short story, and also how to deal with so-called “writer’s block” when it strikes in the middle of a novel or short story.
And as I sit down to write this . . . THERE IT IS! The blank page. I know I want to write an article about how to get started, and here I am, trying to get started. What do I want to say? What should come first? Do I start with a riveting scene, a memory, the character’s voice, dialogue? *bites lower lip* And now the fear has kicked in. What if what I write is crap? What if I have nothing to say? What if the story dies before I get to the end? What if I’m wasting my time? Oh gods, the story does suck! And I haven’t even started! Why did I even think I could write? Nobody’s going to read this, why am I even bothering? I could be watching TV, or listening to my iPod, or surfing the web. I bet someone’s posted something interesting on LJ, I should go check that out.
And now you’ve lost the day of writing. It could have been a productive day. You’ll never know because you never got started. Getting started is rough. That blank page can be total death, especially if you have easy access to the internet. But I think the solution is simple, and doesn’t involve cutting off your web access (although this helps).
Allow yourself to write crap.
Ha! There it is. The key to writing. Allow yourself to write crap.
Nobody writes that stellar novel or short story in one draft. And typically that first draft is, um, rather horrible. It’s dry, it rambles, it has entire paragraphs—entire SCENES even, perhaps even CHAPTERS—that aren’t necessary. This is the secret to writing: you have to write, even if what you’re writing is crap. Getting up and walking away from the blank page isn’t going to make it less blank. When you sit down tomorrow, it’s still going to be there. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to sit down tomorrow and have something to read? Something to look at and analyze and decide whether or not it is crap?
I can’t even count how many times I sat down to write and moved on to something else, then came back the next day and sighed in disgust at myself because I was so lazy the previous day. And that’s really what it is on my part: laziness. I know I can write. It my be complete and total garbage that I delete in a fit of horror the next day, but at least I wrote something. There was something there to delete.
And often what you find is that after a finite amount of crapness (I’m a mathematician, you’ll have to deal with the math terms), the writing slips into something that isn’t garbage. Creativity isn’t something that turns off and on with the flick of a switch. Sometimes, like a car, it takes a little use of the choke and gas treatment before it kicks in and turns over. Even if it doesn’t completely kick in after a while and you end up writing garbage most of the writing session, when you go back and read it over the next day, you’ll find a little something in there worth keeping. A sentence or two. An idea. Some little spark of something that can be salvaged.
This is how I write. I sit down at the computer and reread what I’ve written the previous day. I revise whatever it is as I read it, decide at the end whether there was anything worth keeping . . . and then I try to cut out all the crap. Sometimes this is the entire session, which is depressing, but honestly this doesn’t happen often. There’s usually something in there that I keep, something I lift out and use as my jump-start for that day’s writing session. When writers report their word count for the day, most of us are expecting that word count to DROP the next day, when we realize how awful some of that work actually was.
At the moment however, I’m starting out on a fresh new project. A new novel. New characters, new setting, the complete package, all brand new. I can honestly say that the blank page scares the living shit out of me. The novel may suck. I realize this. I don’t THINK it will, but that fear sets in anyway. The rather faulty logic is that if you don’t write it, if you step away and leave that blank page, then the novel WON’T suck. And it won’t. BECAUSE IT HASN’T BEEN WRITTEN. Which defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.
It’s still tempting logic nonetheless, right? *grin*
Everything that I just said about starting that project applies to sitting down to write in the middle of it as well. Everyone hits the so-called “write’s block” at some point. How do you get over it? Allow yourself to write crap. In that sense, I’ve never hit a wall where I couldn’t write, where the words just would not come. You’re lying to yourself if you’ve ever said this. What you really mean is that GOOD words will not come, and if you’re stepping away from the page because you aren’t writing GOOD words, then you’re defeating yourself. There’s no law that says in order to write (or get published for that matter) that you have to always write well. Hell, none of us would be writers then, we’d never get anything done. This is why I say “so-called” writer’s block. There is no block to writing. You can ALWAYS write; don’t deceive yourself. Just allow yourself to write crap. Yes, you may write crap for days on end. I wrote an entire novel of crap (more than one actually,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
comixboy can attest to this). I’m sure most of the published writers out there have a secret (or not so secret) stash of their own crap novels. But writing is writing. And from those numerous horrible novels I lifted out entire ideas to use in other stories that WEREN’T crap. You will never reach a stage where, on some days, you won’t write garbage. But the more you write, the greater the ratio of good writing to bad.
So, the key to writing is . . . write. It’s as simple as that. It sounds trite, but it’s true. If you’re serious about writing, write. Don’t let the blank page defeat you. In the beginning, there WILL be crap. Realize this. Accept the crap. Embrace it. Growl at it, hiss at it, but accept it and get your ass in that chair again the next day and write.
*************
Check out my website for contests, excerpts from my novels and other interesting links.
Since this is the first post, I figured I’d start at the beginning. I’ll try to keep things mildly organized, but if there’s a particular topic that strikes me one day, that’s probably what I’ll post. Feel free to leave comments on topics you’d like to hear about. I’ll add them to my list and get to them eventually. Thanks for stopping by! And now, the real post. Today’s topic is The Blank Page, my thoughts on how to get started with that novel or short story, and also how to deal with so-called “writer’s block” when it strikes in the middle of a novel or short story.
The Blank Page
And as I sit down to write this . . . THERE IT IS! The blank page. I know I want to write an article about how to get started, and here I am, trying to get started. What do I want to say? What should come first? Do I start with a riveting scene, a memory, the character’s voice, dialogue? *bites lower lip* And now the fear has kicked in. What if what I write is crap? What if I have nothing to say? What if the story dies before I get to the end? What if I’m wasting my time? Oh gods, the story does suck! And I haven’t even started! Why did I even think I could write? Nobody’s going to read this, why am I even bothering? I could be watching TV, or listening to my iPod, or surfing the web. I bet someone’s posted something interesting on LJ, I should go check that out.
And now you’ve lost the day of writing. It could have been a productive day. You’ll never know because you never got started. Getting started is rough. That blank page can be total death, especially if you have easy access to the internet. But I think the solution is simple, and doesn’t involve cutting off your web access (although this helps).
Allow yourself to write crap.
Ha! There it is. The key to writing. Allow yourself to write crap.
Nobody writes that stellar novel or short story in one draft. And typically that first draft is, um, rather horrible. It’s dry, it rambles, it has entire paragraphs—entire SCENES even, perhaps even CHAPTERS—that aren’t necessary. This is the secret to writing: you have to write, even if what you’re writing is crap. Getting up and walking away from the blank page isn’t going to make it less blank. When you sit down tomorrow, it’s still going to be there. Wouldn’t it be much nicer to sit down tomorrow and have something to read? Something to look at and analyze and decide whether or not it is crap?
I can’t even count how many times I sat down to write and moved on to something else, then came back the next day and sighed in disgust at myself because I was so lazy the previous day. And that’s really what it is on my part: laziness. I know I can write. It my be complete and total garbage that I delete in a fit of horror the next day, but at least I wrote something. There was something there to delete.
And often what you find is that after a finite amount of crapness (I’m a mathematician, you’ll have to deal with the math terms), the writing slips into something that isn’t garbage. Creativity isn’t something that turns off and on with the flick of a switch. Sometimes, like a car, it takes a little use of the choke and gas treatment before it kicks in and turns over. Even if it doesn’t completely kick in after a while and you end up writing garbage most of the writing session, when you go back and read it over the next day, you’ll find a little something in there worth keeping. A sentence or two. An idea. Some little spark of something that can be salvaged.
This is how I write. I sit down at the computer and reread what I’ve written the previous day. I revise whatever it is as I read it, decide at the end whether there was anything worth keeping . . . and then I try to cut out all the crap. Sometimes this is the entire session, which is depressing, but honestly this doesn’t happen often. There’s usually something in there that I keep, something I lift out and use as my jump-start for that day’s writing session. When writers report their word count for the day, most of us are expecting that word count to DROP the next day, when we realize how awful some of that work actually was.
At the moment however, I’m starting out on a fresh new project. A new novel. New characters, new setting, the complete package, all brand new. I can honestly say that the blank page scares the living shit out of me. The novel may suck. I realize this. I don’t THINK it will, but that fear sets in anyway. The rather faulty logic is that if you don’t write it, if you step away and leave that blank page, then the novel WON’T suck. And it won’t. BECAUSE IT HASN’T BEEN WRITTEN. Which defeats the purpose of the whole exercise.
It’s still tempting logic nonetheless, right? *grin*
Everything that I just said about starting that project applies to sitting down to write in the middle of it as well. Everyone hits the so-called “write’s block” at some point. How do you get over it? Allow yourself to write crap. In that sense, I’ve never hit a wall where I couldn’t write, where the words just would not come. You’re lying to yourself if you’ve ever said this. What you really mean is that GOOD words will not come, and if you’re stepping away from the page because you aren’t writing GOOD words, then you’re defeating yourself. There’s no law that says in order to write (or get published for that matter) that you have to always write well. Hell, none of us would be writers then, we’d never get anything done. This is why I say “so-called” writer’s block. There is no block to writing. You can ALWAYS write; don’t deceive yourself. Just allow yourself to write crap. Yes, you may write crap for days on end. I wrote an entire novel of crap (more than one actually,
comixboy can attest to this). I’m sure most of the published writers out there have a secret (or not so secret) stash of their own crap novels. But writing is writing. And from those numerous horrible novels I lifted out entire ideas to use in other stories that WEREN’T crap. You will never reach a stage where, on some days, you won’t write garbage. But the more you write, the greater the ratio of good writing to bad.So, the key to writing is . . . write. It’s as simple as that. It sounds trite, but it’s true. If you’re serious about writing, write. Don’t let the blank page defeat you. In the beginning, there WILL be crap. Realize this. Accept the crap. Embrace it. Growl at it, hiss at it, but accept it and get your ass in that chair again the next day and write.
*************
Check out my website for contests, excerpts from my novels and other interesting links.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Thank you
Date: 2007-02-09 02:54 pm (UTC)I should forget all those worries and just write, darn-it-all, and shovel away the crap later.
Thanks!
Re: Thank you
Date: 2007-02-09 08:27 pm (UTC)Re: Thank you
Date: 2007-02-10 01:15 pm (UTC)Glad my advice helped!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 03:50 pm (UTC)I needed that reminder.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:18 pm (UTC)I've got a Myspace account now, so if you'd like to "be my friend" over there, just send me an invite.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 02:05 pm (UTC)http://www.myspace.com/storytellershannon
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:54 pm (UTC)Best,
Shannon
no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-09 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:49 am (UTC)That's still better than my percentage, I'm sure!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 04:42 am (UTC)Whenever I suffered from Blank Page syndrome, I'd get rid of the blank page by writing "Now I can star writing. This is what I know about my story so far..."
After that, I'm fine.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:58 pm (UTC)Now that's payback. Heh.
Best,
Shannon
no subject
Date: 2007-02-12 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:20 pm (UTC)Thanks for the post!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-10 01:23 pm (UTC)Re: Nice to Meet You
Date: 2007-02-12 12:34 am (UTC)