Everyone has a different start line.
This is the first piece of advice I have for writers like me.
Why do I want to give five pieces of advice to post-newb writers?
Well, I read a lot of advice on writing.
No, I mean A LOT.
I spend as much time reading books on how to write as I do writing.
I know what I ‘should’ be doing—according to all these various literary sages—and yet often freeze at the keyboard as I try to keep all those wisdom-filled plates spinning at once in my tortured mind.
Hey, come back!
I’m not going to regurgitate any of that here, so cool yer jets.
You know your show vs. tells, story is character, kill your darlings yada yada.
I’m also not going to give advice for newbs, as there are buckets of that about, too.
But there is a distinct lack of advice for writers like yours truly, who have been writing for a few years but haven’t published anything.
We’re not complete beginners, nor do we have the cojones to call ourselves writers, yet.
I’ve set down five pieces of advice for unpublished writers or those a little down the road that I’ve dredged from the silty soup of the last few years spent hunched at my desk.
Whenever I waver from my desire to bring you the usual 24-carrat crapola, I tick through these and start over. They have helped me push on from the ‘hobbyist’ approach to writing. They’ve hardened me, and now I hunger.
This is the first in the series. I’ll post the next one when I can pull myself away from my latest Bookfox viewing marathon (the guy’s good, check him out).
1. Everyone Has a Different Start Line
When you’re a few years into your writing career and are yet unpublished, it’s going to happen.
You’re going to look around and compare yourself with others.
Then up pops that annoying little voice.
You, a writer?
You’re going to measure yourself against the Sally Rooney’s of this world or -insert younger, wildly successful writer here-
You don’t have any natural talent.
You’re going to be scrolling through Stephen King’s Wikipedia page, and realise he had fifteen novels under his belt by your age.
You’ve wasted your life.
Or even worse, you’re going to start comparing yourself with the few published writer friends you’ve picked up.
You’re hopeless.
STOP.
Nip that shit in the bud right now.
There is not a single writer out there you can fairly compare yourself with, as we all have different start lines.
That writer friend who’s gone from zero to a published series in the time you’ve been working through the third draft of your debut? She’s been playing around with those stories for a decade.
The other writer friend who began his first novel two years after you and has just got a book deal? He’s been writing short stories since he was a teenager.
That acquaintance who started writing at the same time as you but has finished three novels? They have a wealthy spouse who enables them to write full time and also neglected to mention that they completed an MFA in creative writing five years ago.
Etc. etc…
If you’re one of those examples above, great.
But if, like me, you’re not, then listen: these are all things beyond your control. It is pointless wasting time and energy yowling about them.
Oh, and if you think any of your new, published writer friends has it easy? You’re wrong.
NO ONE FINDS WRITING EASY.
To find out how I deal with writing life week in week out, among other hilarity-free japes and witless witticisms, sign up for my newsletter HERE.
Anyway, life isn’t fair. Deal with it. Or at least try to get some perspective.
Take me.
When was JL’s start line?
One winter vacation, twiddling my thumbs, I decided to write a novel.
I had an idea, I had a computer, and I had the time.
I set myself a quota of 1500 words a day and in two months, I was done.
I was thirty-seven years old.
For my writing career, that was my start line.
I could tell you with pinpoint accuracy the last time I had engaged in creative writing of any kind, as my mum kept my middle school English textbooks.
I was fifteen. Mrs. Walton made us write a haiku. This was my effort:
Hardly an indication of literary genius. And since that effort, zip.
No journals, poetry, blogs (check this post on how to write a Great Celebrity Anecdote HERE), or even sexually explicit limericks. I didn’t write another creative word, until that first draft in 2017.
So sometimes I feel like a fraud.
Most of the guests I hear on writing podcasts introduce themselves by saying, ‘I’ve been writing since gestation…’ or similar.
But it doesn’t matter.
The most important thing is that you’ve begun.
Everyone has a different start line, but you’ve left your start line.
Hilary Mantel said that some of our best ideas have a timeline of their own. You need life experience to do them justice.
Remembering JL in his twenties, if he’d tried to write a novel then, it would have been the most self-centred, shallow, stilted spray of snake-semen imaginable.
But then another twenty-something might have a level of emotional maturity I can only dream of.
The point is: focus on you.
No matter when you’re starting line was, everyone must learn their craft, practise and get better until maybe they’re ready for publication.
I say maybe because some might never get there.
And that’s okay, writing is good for you.
Writing is one of those wonderful activities where the process is as rewarding as the product.
But yeah, it must be sweet to publish.
Just don’t get hung up on someone you thought was the same ‘level’ as you going gangbusters when you’re struggling to finish that first project. No two people are the same, no two lives are the same.
And again, no matter who you are, the best writers never stop learning and never stop improving.
That means you.
The only finish line is the grave.
Whether you came to writing in your twenties, forties or seventies.
Whether you’re two years, five years, or ten years into your journey.
Look back at your starting line and celebrate how far you’ve come.
Now keep going.
JL
Come back soon for part two of this five-part series. It’s been conceived. Its cancerous cells have begun to multiply.
In the meantime, how about Princess Diana, me and a feathered shag? Intrigued? Disgusted? Read the story HERE.
When was your start line?
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