RULE 1.
BURN YOUR JOURNAL.
Just about every writing book I know says writing is a muscle that you have to regularly exercise and keep in use, and that if you donât know what to write, you shouldnât let that stop you. You should just start keeping a journal and writing down, at random, all your thoughts and ideas.
In my bookâthis one to be exactâthatâs almost always an immense waste of time and paper. The only muscle youâll be exercise by keeping a journal is your hand, and for that youâd be better off jumping rope.
If you feel like keeping a journalâsomething that neither you nor anyone else on earth will ever want to readâby all means be my guest.
But if you want to write something that may eventually see the light of day, that a magazine might buy, a publisher publish, or a producer produce, then youâll have to knock off the journaling and do the grunt work that real writing requires.
Nine out of ten struggling writers get stuck right there. Instead of confronting all the very real problems that any book or article or story poses, they retreat to those blasted journals, on the theory that theyâre loosening up their artistic tendons and free-associating their way to fresh ideas.
All theyâre really doing is keeping the manufacturers of those fancy blank books, the ones that uselessly clutter up the shelves at your local bookstores, in business.
All too often, writing in a journal is just a stall, a waiting game, a way to tell yourself that youâre working when youâre not, that youâre doing something of value when youâre just using up paper, that youâre a writer when in fact youâre just going through the motions of one. Look at me! I had blank paper in front of meâand now itâs filled with words!
Anyone can do that. Anytime.
The hard part of writing isnât scribbling words on a page. The hard part is scribbling words that mean something, that make sense, that build a narrative or lay out an argument, that construct a scene or articulate a position. Itâs not about how many pages you can cover with ink in a day. In some cases, a good dayâs work might be a couple of paragraphs. But if those two paragraphs are right, then theyâre a lot more valuable than ten or twenty pages of idle burbling.
Writing takes deliberation and thought, craft and commitment.
If youâre serious about writing, burn the journal, and get to work.
RULE 2.
GET A PEN PAL.
But I donât want you to think Iâm too hard-hearted.
I know what itâs like to be stuck, to have the urgent desire to write, but nothing particular to say just now. Thatâs usually when those alluring journals come out.
But try this. Instead of writing the stream-of-consciousness twaddle that generally fills those blank pages, try this insteadâwrite a letter, to a friend.
Writing has to have a purpose; itâs meant to communicate something, to someone, and if youâre not ready to write for the general publicâmany times weâre notâthen try writing for a very specific audienceâone that you know will be happy to hear from you. (People are so astonished to get letters these days, you might want to send a text in advance to warn them that one is on the way, lest they keel over in shock.) If you must, you could even make your letter an e-mail, but thereâs something about the ephemerality of e-mails, or texts and tweets for that matter, that virtually cries out for sloppiness and imprecision. A good, old-fashioned letter, hand-scrawled or printed out on paper, will require you to think before you write, as well as permit you to edit and revise and amend.
All the things, in other words, that honest-to-God writing makes you do!
Itâll also put you in touch with a lot of important things. For one, your ideal audience. Much of the time, writers are stuck because we canât figure out who weâre writing for, or because weâve started imagining our audience as an indifferent, even hostile, crowdâa bunch of critics just waiting to take their shot at us. Writing to a friend will remind you that there are nice folks out there, folks you like and who like you back, who would be delighted to hear what you have to say.
Writing a letter can also remind you, in case youâd forgotten, what it is that you actually have to say. Look and see what flows from your flying fingertips, or your scribbling pen. Are you seeking comfort for a broken heart? Are you telling a funny story about the perfectly awful job interview you just went on? Are you ranting about the next-door neighbors who barbecue meats of unknown origin? Whatever it is, thatâs what youâre thinking about, thatâs whatâs on your mind. And, if you wanted to, thatâs what you could be writing about for others, tooâthe dismal job interview could work as a humor piece for a local paper, the cookout kings next door could become characters in a screenplay, the broken romance story might be right for the âModern Loveâ column in the New York Times (though the odds of capturing that particular Holy Grail are, Iâm told, astronomical. I have the rejection lettersâoops, rejection emailsâto prove it.)
But because youâre writing now with a purpose and a person in mindâinstead of just sprawling all over a journalâyouâre paying attention, the way you should, to everything from pace to clarity. Youâre writing to interest and even, with any luck, entertain the friend whoâs going to receive this letter in a few days. And secretly, youâre looking forward to the reaction your words are going to get.
However limited it may be, writing a letter is a form of publication. Next time you can go after a biggerâand payingâcrowd.
RULE 3.
THROW OUT YOUR THESAURUS.
How many times, when youâre telling a story at a party, do you stop dead to search for a bigger, better, or more impressive word than the one you were just about to utter?
Unless you were determined to lose your audience, probably not very often.
So why would you do it when youâre writing?
The best writing is the writing that flows naturally, and without delay or hesitation, from the mind of the writer. Itâs writing that appears to have come effortlessly (however much effort actually went into it behind the scenes). Itâs writing that sounds like its authorâyouâand that uses your rhythm, your sensibility, and your vocabulary.
The minute you pick up a thesaurus, youâve muddied the waters. Into the clear running stream of your prose, youâve introduced an oil slick. Nothing sticks out in a piece of prose like the words youâve plucked from those long lists of synonyms, each one more obscure than its predecessor.
Thesaurus words are words you would never use on your own; the fact that you had to resort to the thesaurus just to find them proves it. They arenât words that come readily to your mind, or that rest comfortably in your working vocabulary. Suddenly, you start sounding pompous, or precious. Itâs as if youâve swapped your customary Hawaiian shirts and shorts for a three-piece suit and a watch fob. If you think people wonât notice the change, think again.
The voice you write in is the voice your reader hears, and, ideally, grows to trust. Itâs the voice the reader becomes accustomed to, the one that makes a sort of pact between the two of you. When you stop writing with your own words, the words that you would or could summon up on your own, then you break that pact and you propel the reader out of your world and straight into Mr. Rogetâs. Itâs no different than if you were writing fiction and you put into a characterâs mouth words that the character could never have conjured up on his own. If you wrote about a high fashion editor and had her barking like a short-order cook, or a stevedore sounding like a diplomat, youâd be shaking your readerâs belief not only in the character, but in the entire fictional world that the character inhabits.
Whatever it is you want to say in your work, find a way to say it not in words youâve borrowed for this special occasion, like some rental tuxedo, but in words you already own, words that are already hanging in your closet. Those are the words that youâll be most comfortable wearing and that your readers will recognize you in.
RULE 4.
ZIP THE LIP.
Ever notice how, when an interviewer asks an author about his next project, the author gets very evasive. âOh, Iâm just noodling with a couple of things right now,â or âWell, I hate to jinx anything by talking about it too soon.â
Take an important cue from this.
Professional writers know that the more you talk about something youâre planning to write, the less likely it is that youâll ever write it.
A book is like a steam engine, and the more you talk about it, the more you lower the internal pressure thatâs needed to make the thing run. All the energy that should be going back into the book is being squandered in talk and dissipated in the air.
If people do ask what youâre working on these days, itâs perfectly all right to say youâre taking a shot at a murder mystery, a biography, a memoir of your curious years as a button man for the mob, because if you try to dodge the question altogether, youâll look snootyââOh, look at Mr. Fancy Pants here, thinks heâs too smart for the likes of us!ââor just plain rude.
But if you talk too much, youâll get into trouble. Either youâll start going on about the subject of your book until your friends are bored to tearsâand trust me, theyâre bored in three minutesâor, and this is even more dangerous, youâll go on about it until you begin to get bored yourself. Thereâs nothing like hearing a story told over and over again to take the zest out of it, for you and everybody else.
In every book you write, there will be things you discover only along the way, points you suddenly want to make, themes that slowly emerge, stories that take surprising turns. But the place to discover these things is on the page, as you write, rather than at some cocktail party where the best you can do is jot something down on a napkin and hope, when you fish the darn thing out of your pocket the next morning, that it isnât hopelessly smudged and illegible.
Carry the book youâre writing in your imagination, but keep your mouth closed. That way, nothing that belongs to the book will escapeâno image will fade from overexposure, no dialogue will become rote, and no shocking twist will lose its full impact. Sealed in its original containerâyour headâyour work will retain all of its freshness and flavor.
RULE 5.
CALL OUT THE THOUGHT POLICE.
If thereâs one question successful writers get asked at virtually every public event they attend, itâs âWhere do you get your ideas?ââas if they could tell you, âOh yeah, thereâs this great little shop on the corner of Lexington and 23rd. But go early, because the best ideas are gone by ten.â
Oh man, if only there were such a shop. The line would be around the block, and, frankly, Iâd be camped out at the head of it.
No, the best place to get ideasâfor articles, essays, books, stories, scriptsâis much closer to home than that. Itâs your own head, if only youâll learn to pay proper attention to whatâs going on in there.
Sure, you can sit down with a legal pad in your lap, shut your eyes, press your hands to your temples, and bid the ideas to come. But that probably works as well as guessing the right lottery numbers. With something as ephemeral as ideas, intense concentration can sometimes prove to be more of an impediment than a help.
Meanwhile, all day long, everyday, great notions are flowing right by you, but just under your radar. Where are they? What are they? Theyâre in the thoughts youâre thinking as you drive to work, or as you sit on the bus observing your fellow passengers. Theyâre crossing your mind while you have dinner with friends and somebody says something that makes you laugh. Theyâre in the tub with you, as you lie back with your head on the cold porcelain rim, and wonder what your colleague really meant by that weird remark at work.
All day long, like a radio thatâs never turned off, your mind is broadcasting your interests, your obsessions, your worries, your fears, your deepest concerns, and these are the raw materials from which you will build your most effective work. Theyâre the things that please and plague you, trouble and tempt you, the things that get your sympathies engaged, your temper aroused, your sense of humor tickled. But because youâre doing something else at the timeâbecause youâre not actually in the working modeâyouâre not paying attention, and youâre not giving these thoughts their due.
In fact, half the time youâre trying to banish these thoughtsâso what, for instance, if the third girlfriend in a row has just broken up with you for no reason you can discern? You tell yourself to forget about it, and think about something more constructive. Like your stock portfolio. But your thoughts, undoubtedly, keep returning to that sore point. What is it, you wonder, that women really want? Is it even remotely possible that you are doing something wrong? Should you not have suggested that she throw out everything in her closet and replace it all with those catalog items youâd so helpfully flagged with colorful Post-it notes? Was that ⌠insensitive?
Hereâs your material, hereâs your mother lode. Hereâs something you feel strongly about, even if your chief emotion is confusion. And this is where you will find your most successful stories and essays. When you sit at your computer, hell-bent on coming up with some important concept, you are asking for trouble; before you know it, you will be jotting down big themes like âmanâs inhumanity to man,â or intractable problems like the proliferation of motorized scooters on our city sidewalks. Thatâs all fine if youâre on the editorial staff of some newspaper, but for the rest of us, that kind of material is dead on arrival. Killed by noble intentions.
Meanwhile, the stuff you scorn, the quotidian chaff that your mind keeps turning over and over, is where your fortune lies. Let the big themes emerge, if they will, from the everyday questions, the Sturm und Drang of your daily existence, from the...