I’m reading Wintergirls. Yesterday this led me to Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog, which led the blog of Markus Zusak (Book Thief) and then Tim Tharp (Spectacular Now). The world, I discover, is full of writers, and some of them are mature and helpful, and some of them are full of themselves, and sometimes the mature ones write books I don’t like, and sometimes the assholes write books I adore. I think it might be bad for me to read all this. Every. Single. One. Says that you have to write daily. Every. Single. One. Anderson had a great piece of advice– if you get stuck and you can’t figure out what to do next, brainstorm ten terrible things that might happen to your character, and ten great things that might happen to your character. From that pile of possibility, the next step will surely emerge. Zusak said that you can only become a writer by writing. It’s in the process of writing that you discover the writer that you are. You have to slog through the daily dross of it, and then you meet yourself.
Punishing things people say: if you aren’t writing then you aren’t a writer. True, in the most literal sense of the word, but it ends up slamming a door in the face of lots of people hoping to get in. You could say, instead: to be a writer you have to practice, every day, and be willing to be bad at it, and not enjoy it sometimes. And when you have done that enough, you will be a writer. Don’t spend too much time asking, what have I written so far, as if that is the measure of your potential. Look forward. Ask yourself, am I willing to write, write every day, feel bad about myself, and keep trying?
Some writers can’t stop themselves from writing. And some have to tie themselves to a chair to get it done. I am that one. And if you are thinking about it that hard, then it’s something you want. And that’s a beginning.
It has taken me decades to understand and accept the premise that to become a writer you must train, the same way you train for a competitive sport. The idea that I didn’t understand that before astonishes me. How could I be so naïve? How did I grow up thinking talent was a kind of magic, or voodoo, that no work was involved, only hoping, and/or finding someone who could determine whether or not you had the Gift, the way geneticists can tell if you will or will not develop Huntington’s? I have wasted so much time waiting for a diagnosis, instead of learning how to write.
Today I read Looking for Alaska, another beautiful book by John Green. His characters are richly, unexpectedly specific. He takes his time with them and isn’t afraid to get tangential. Takumi, the Japanese boarding student who raps. Alaska, the girl who loves sex and collects books at yard sales. Miles, who had no friends and spent his life memorizing the last words of famous people. The Colonel, dirt poor and insanely smart, who has memorized, first, all the capitols of all the countries of the world, and then all of their populations. I learn: you don’t need as many details as you think to bring a character vividly to life.