I am a writer. I write thrillers, ReWire and ReKill are the first two thrillers in what’s turing out to be a pretty good series. I write on leadership, management, project management, sales, health and fitness. I write on what can be called for lack of a better word, a ‘libertarian’ view of things in the news.
And I write on writing. Quotes on writing, thinking about the writing process, and thinking about what to write about, what will carry weight and still entertain and hopefully enlighten are important to me. They help me work. And writing is work.
One of my favorite quotes on writing goes this.
Hard writing makes easy reading.
Wallace Stegner
The concept works for strength training as well. If you don’t push your body, bring muscles to failure on occasion, you don’t get an increase in strength-you just stay where you are. As a writer I push my self to failure sometimes. I will write myself into a corner and get stuck-failure.
Eventually I will find a way out of the corner. Sometimes a bit of my writing, hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of words, will seem wasted. But these words aren’t wasted. You have to try different approaches to make your story come alive. It’s just like failing to hit a new max on a lift in the gym. Sometimes you have to fail so that you do a better job resting or sleeping or dialing in your diet. In order to grow you need to change it up.
Lord Byron also said something writing being hard, at least good writing. He said, in a poem.
Oh that I had the art of easy writing
What should be easy reading!
So, if you are doing anything worthwhile, especially if your goal is to make it easy for others to read your words, simply accept that it will be hard work. Hard work is okay. It’s okay in the gym, at your laptop as you write, on the job, and in a relationship.
What do you do when the writing gets hard? I like to take joy in the challenges of the craft. I ask myself questions. When I question myself I get the courage and energy to carry on with the story. I ask myself questions like the ones below.
What it will it take to make sure that the reader doesn’t have to suspend belief too often?
How can I make make sure the bad guys aren’t caricatures? It’s easy to paint bad guys as all bad, but most of them weren’t bad seed. They were made bad.
Can I make the bad guys bad and show what made them the way they are without giving them permission to do they bad things they do?
Can I create sympathy, a little sympathy for the bad guy’s plight, while still showing that he or she took turn a wrong turn morally?
Can I do this without slowing the story with preaching?
Can I show it and not tell it?
Can I make the good guys good enough to be heroic and still have human foibles and weaknesses just like the rest of us?
My advice to you as you put pencil to paper
If you want to be a writer and not a faker
Is to know that first draft will never pass
and that good writing will always be a large pain in the ass
John Cameron
Yes, you can quote me