on writing

I was rummaging through LJ and I found Seanan's Fifty Thoughts on Writing, which has been really enlightening and thought-provoking so far. There are a lot of writers on my friends list, so I thought I'd share.

She's going to compose 50 guides on writing; she's at number 24 at the moment ("Anyone who tells you that your first draft is brilliant, perfect poetry and deserves to be published just as it is and you shouldn't change a word and oh, you're going to be famous and make enough money to buy a desert island is either a) lying, b) delusional, or c) your mother.") and I'm reading number 8 ("God Made the Mosquito.").

I'm always looking for ways to improve my crappy writing, and I like the way that McGuire lays out and then develops her ideas - Her tone is friendly and helpful, like a good teacher's should be. And when she's right, she's right:

Putting fifty thousand words on paper does not make you a novelist. It means you successfully put fifty thousand words on paper. You should be proud of yourself for that, because dude, it's difficult to stick with a plot and a concept and an idea and characters for that long, and I salute you. At the same time, you're not a novelist. Sweating over those fifty thousand words until you're confident that at least forty thousand of them are good ones is what makes you a novelist. Good luck. (From You May Not Be A Novelist (and That's Okay))

Man, that was like a harpoon to my heart. When I finished my NaNo novel book, I was so so proud and so so convinced that I AM AUTHOR NOW! She's completely right - I just arranged 50,000 words in a non-random order. Maybe after the second draft, I'll be able to join the ranks. Or maybe after the third. Or probably never.

Can't wait to read the rest of her guides.

[Cross-posted to my IJ.]

Wow!

Holy crap - Congrats on the Rhysling nomination, handful_ofdust!