duvete replied to your post âI was updating my Nano word count and saw this really good pep talk...â
Okay, but if Andy Weir or Nanwrimo.com comes after me, itâs all your fault.
One of the most common questions a writer gets asked is, âDo you have any tips on writing?â Unfortunately, thatâs a very broad question. Itâs like asking a mechanic, âDo you have any tips on fixing cars?â Itâs their whole job and it took a long time for them to learn it. Itâs hard to impart any useful information quickly.
But I will say this: The key is keeping your motivation up. You have to actually sit down and put words into your word processor. And, usually, thatâs not fun. Itâs hard work. So how do you keep yourself coming back to that document day after day?
First off, you have to accept that youâre not going to be blazing away in a creative euphoria all the time. In fact, youâll almost never be in that state. Usually, itâs a slog. So make your peace with the fact that it is a slog, but that youâre working toward a goal. Writing isnât like playing music, where the act itself is rewarding. Itâs more like gardening, where the work is hard and unpleasant, but the result is beautiful.
Next, you have to accept that your story will change as you write it. Something thatâs perfect and awesome in your mind will often be stupid when you write it down. This is not a failure on your part, and it doesnât mean you suck. It means youâre a writer, and you have begun phase one of making your story better. The moment you try to put things into words is when you find all the problems. Thatâs natural and normal, and every writer faces it.
And then thereâs âflow.â Sometimes, when youâre writing, things come together easily and you can crank out 2,000 words in an afternoon. But other times, itâs torture just to crap out 300 words. In those rough patches, hereâs something to keep yourself going: When you read the pages later, you wonât be able to tell which ones you wrote with good flow and which ones were hard. Youâre creating the same quality of work in both cases. You might not believe me, but the next time it happens to you, check the results later. Youâll see for yourself. So when youâre having a rough patch, it helps to remember that youâre making progress toward a goal. The words youâre putting down arenât wasted. Theyâre just as good as the rest.
And, finally, I have this advice: Resist the urge to tell friends and family your story. I know itâs hard because you want to talk about it and theyâre (sometimes) interested in hearing about it. But writers have a dirty little secret: We are mainly motivated by our desire for people to experience our stories. We want an audience. We need it.
Telling your story to friends verbally satisfies that need for an audience, and it diminishes your motivation to actually write it. So make a rule: The only way for anyone to ever hear about your stories is to read them. You can still give it to them chapter by chapterâso you get the sweet, sweet external validation that you crave during the process. But no telling the story outside the pages.
If you do that, youâll at least finish the book.
Andy Weir is the bestselling author of Artemis and The Martian. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects such as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail.
