7 things I’ve learned about writing
1. Trust your instincts. My brother taught me to trust my instincts. Actually my mother tried to drill this into me too when I was a kid, telling me a story about hitchhiking aged 18 in France which ended with the lesson: Always listen to the voice in your head or you might get killed by a serial killer. But it’s not just relevant for hitchhiking, it’s also important for writing. Listening to your instincts (or some might call it intuition) is probably the best advice I can give.
It’s the voice in your head that says no, edit that, or no that’s not working. Most clearly I can describe it as a gasp of butterflies in my stomach when I hit on something—a new idea—and I know instantly I’m onto something. If that feeling doesn’t come I drop the idea and keep meandering through my thoughts until that feeling does come. And it’s never failed me yet.
2. Write what you want to write (but only if you don’t have expectations about being published.) I wanted to write a book. My publisher told me it probably wasn’t a good idea because paranormal was “on the way out.” As I was umming and arring about whether to write it or to focus on something more dystopian / set in space / about zombies (maybe combining all three), I was given advice by someone who works in the video games industry.
He told me of that many times he was warned not to invest in creating a new game because “that idea’s been done to death.” He always went ahead and did what he wanted, just making sure it was the best game in that genre that had ever been made. “So write that book,” he told me. So I did.
The publisher didn’t buy it. Was I gutted? A little, yes. But I just went ahead and self-published it, learned a great deal about that process, wrote a third book in 6 weeks, self-published that, and now happily accrue the royalties on both those books.
If you really are desperate to get published, if that’s your be all and end all, thinking commercially is important, and this might require you to think twice about writing what you want to write. I wrote what I wanted to write partly because I needed to write it but also because I weighed it and thought it a worthwhile use of my time. It only took me one month to write it for starters, not a year or a decade. If you’re going to spend ten years writing a book and expect to retire on the giant sale you’ll make to a big five publisher it might be time to take a reality check (or check into a mental asylum as you suffer from delusions).
3. You will spend more time marketing than you will writing
If you want to be successful as an author you will need to spend more time on social media and on your marketing strategy than you do on writing your book. Fact.
No book, whether indie or traditionally published, will sell without serious push behind it. And this requires hours and hours of your time; building relationships on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Instagram. Remember: It’s not a one-way relationship. You need to provide useful content and support to readers and fans. Never shove your book down their throats.
You will wonder when your sweet set up as an author morphed into 15 hour days on Twitter slogging like some media intern for Yahoo. You will wonder what you need to do to become John Green. You will wonder what the goddamn point is because it feels as if you are screaming into a void. But you will keep going because there’s nothing quite like seeing someone rave about your book online and because what else are you going to do? Quit writing and actually become an intern at Yahoo?
4. Word count matters. YA should be 65-85K words if you’re a debut author (though there are exceptions)! I wish I’d known that when I finished my first manuscript. Instead I had to spend three months editing 40,000 words off it.
5. The universe gives you all the ideas you need exactly when you need them. I have this written on a post it over my desk. And it’s true. It helps me when I enter panic mode. I also find that sitting down and just writing dialogue between the characters is the best way of getting a chapter rolling if I’m struggling. I’ve written fourteen books in five years, the universe has definitely provided the ideas.
All I’ve needed to do is show up and trust.
6. Get yourself some writing cheerleaders. Writing’s a lonely business. There are days I wake up and find I’ve scrawled in CAPS all over my MS “SARAH REALLY? REALLY? THIS IS THE BEST YOU CAN DO?” and it’s days like those you really rely on your writing buddies to tell you that you rock, that your latest work is pure genius. My writing buddies aren’t writers actually, they’re friends. My best friends. And very early on I told them I didn’t want criticism (I’ll save that for my agent and editor thanks), I want cheerleading rah rah pom pom pep talks about how great my stories are. And they provide this. In spades. I am lucky that they do actually like what I write. At least I think they do. Because it keeps me going.
7. Good karma exists. Doing good stuff for people pays dividends. It’s true what they say about what goes around comes around. Every time I’ve done a favor—promoted another author, given them a review, encouraged a new writer, just been kind and positive in general—something good has happened to me in return. Taking the time to tweet, post a review on goodreads or amazon, email another writer and tell them how much you enjoyed their book is firstly a really lovely thing to do and, as Hayley Joel Osment told us, if you pay it forward they will come. Or something.
Sarah is published by Simon & Schuster in the UK & US. Her books include: Hunting Lila, Losing Lila, Fated, The Sound and Out of Control.
Her alter-ego Mila Gray is published by Pan Macmillan. Her first adult novel COME BACK TO ME has just been released.
The original post appeared on Writers Digest but has since been edited and updated.
Email me when Sarah J Alderson publishes or recommends stories