My Advice
July 30, 2001
7:16 a.m.
Steve Leigh looked at us. "What is the one piece of advice you would give a new writer starting out?" We were sitting in a Mongolian grill, eating. Restaurant noises echoed around us. Waitresses rushed about. "Don't quit," Lisa Silverthorne said. "Get a real job," Linda Dunn followed. I didn't say much. I mean, what the heck can you say when the two best answers have already been taken? Lisa and Linda explained themselves a bit while I thought. Then Steve came back to me. "Do what works for you." I think I replied. I'm okay with that. It's a good answer. No one can argue against it, right? But there's so much to this question that I can't help but feel anxious about it. Really. The problem, I think, is that I'm interpreting the question to be "What would you tell a young person who wants to make his or her living writing?" And I don't think that question is best answered in a single line of crystal-clear advice. "Write what you know?" "Be passionate?" "Write every day?" "Use 1-inch margins?" "Run away you idiot?" I don't know. The problem is that I don't think you can give anyone advice so much as be available to answer questions. This, after several years of trying to understand how things work, is perhaps the lump sum of my learning: No matter what anyone says, you're going to have to do it your own way. The corollary to this is: It's a lot harder than it looks.   It is--of course--worth every minute, though. For those who haven't been keeping up on my site (and where the heck have you been?), I've spent the past week rereading the first 350 pages of the novel I'm working on, with the goal of having everything to that point rock solid before I head into the last 150 pages. I'm pleased to report that as of this morning, I'm through the reread. I do have three places I'm going to work on a bit before I move on. Two of them are probably fifteen minutes worth of effort. No big deal. The third may take an hour or three. We'll see. Regardless, I have to say I'm really pleased with how it's come together so far. Heck, the thing almost reads like a book. [grin]. Have a great day.  And There's No Secret Handshake, Either Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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"You owe me $24." Brigid (fast becoming a teenager) |
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