Hey Hunters,
Today's post is writer and author oriented, especially for aspiring authors. Now we have authors like Stephen King, who has been known to write anywhere from 4-10 pages a day. Countless interviews show that he finishes the first draft in about one season, three month period. The reason why somebody could write a book this quick is that he does it professionally and hones his craft DAILY! It does help to depend only on that income and set your writing hours. Then we have G R R Martin, he writes only when inspired. This is why we are still waiting for the missing Game of Thrones books. Undoubtedly both authors are brilliant and produce amazing works. Yet neither of them publishes a 300-page manuscript in 30 days, from the first draft.
30 Days from Scrap to Publish:
Now I am not saying it is impossible to write the first draft in 30 days. It is possible to write a book in a week if one is frantic enough. Don't take it as a challenge. The likelihood of it being so? Low. Writing requires brain practice and a steady hand. While writing it is important to work out the ideas that you want to translate and work on your voice, rather than having a word mash product. This is why I suggest focusing on developing your own voice.
Novel Outline:
Apparently, a popular theme on Pinterest is outlining novels, which would somehow after being finished, would produce a ready to print novel! Now let us analyze. If you are sketching briefly something, would that make an oil painting? No. Now how would paragraphs, although well-sorted, make up a manuscript? They would not. Yes, ideas look organized and ready to use, but so would writing them out already in a scene. To me, outlines are just timewasting steps used by marketing social media. Actually, this is when I like King's suggestion. King says that he simply starts writing, and lets characters take him through the story. If writing from a bulletin points, it is more likely to look like jumping around story points, than a well developed and living breathing characters.
Novel Writing Software:
To be honest I have fallen in writing software trap before. I kept using Writers Cafe, MyNovel and couple of other software. Want a surprise? I still had to write. There is no shortcut or magical software that would magically write your book for you! Writers Cafe has more options for timelines, notes and etc than I can count. What I did realize, so does my computer on its own, and a little imagination with post its, whiteboard and notebook, the effect would be the same. This is another timewasting activity. Instead, I suggest what Chuck Palahniuk is doing; write a novel in a notebook, as a first draft, and once the sweet words of The End come into fruition, copy the whole notebook to your computer and that is when you edit. This is one of the optimal solutions, other than writing digitally in the first place.
Writing Will Create Good Writing:
Yes and no. Analyzing your writing does help with improving writing. Yet, I say read. A lot of authors believe that a road to publishing is paved in other writer's success. As a good writer, you should also be a reader. The best thing that I have ever done was to read all of the mythology and history books, even small kids encyclopedia, that I could lay my hands on. While writing fantasy it helps to know of all the combinations and basic myths that humans believed in. I'd like to think that universal truths are an important part of the story, thus reading comes in handy.
I hope you liked this post guy. Don't forget to comment about your writing habits and suggestions for aspiring authors.
Cheers!
Regina Hunter
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