Best – “Give yourself permission to write a
‘crappy’ first draft.”
This simple piece of advice changed my
entire prospective and output as a novelist.
It’s a huge achievement for anyone to
finish a full-length novel…but for some writers this can take years. If you
want to give up the day job, pursue your life’s calling or write for the rest
of your life, the fact is you have to write as quickly as you possibly can for
that to happen and be able to eat and pay your rent/mortgage.
When you’ve beaten the writer’s odds and
become a household name, there’s every chance your publisher will be more than
happy for you to turn in a 100,000 word novel every year, maybe even every two
years. Why? Because the chances are your name alone will give them the return
they are looking for.
However, between now and then, you have to
work well and hard.
For me, that possibility came with this
advice – once I understood and took it onboard, I sat down and planned as much
of my novel as I felt I needed in order to write the entire first draft without
looking back. The result? My average daily output jumped from 500 words a day
to 2,000. Admittedly, I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mum and able to
write around my children, BUT if your WEEKLY output is 500 words and becomes
2,000, isn’t that a huge difference too?
Of course, there is more work to come when
you have to beat your words into shape, but won’t it be easier to alter, delete
and improve a page full of words than battling with a first chapter over and
over again?
Worst advice – “Give up now…you’ll never be
published.” Anonymous contest judge circa 2005
Hmm, I could let this one go by without
comment but I will say a few words.
Most importantly, this advice had the exact
opposite affect on me than the judge most probably intended.
For some people, this might mean they never
pick up a pen or put their fingers to a keyboard again. For me, it made me more
determined than ever to prove him/her wrong. It angered me, made me more
passionate about my dreams and gave me the boost to carry on.
In 2007 my first novel was published…today,
I have sixteen full-length novels published, another due for release in
November 2016, another being shopped out by my agent and quarter way through
novel number twenty.
I write romantic suspense and mainstream
romance for Harlequin Superromance and Victorian romance for eKensington, two
of the biggest romance publishers in the US.
Bad advice? Yes. A great motivator?
Absolutely!
Write on!
Rachel x
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