WAKE UP AND WRITE
Have Faith in Yourself and Have Faith in the Process
Even if you need to self-publish, there’s no shame in that
Wake Up and Write is a regular advice column from Moms Don’t Have Time to Write. Today, we have Lauren Martin —a magazine writer and memoirist — who shared writing advice on the podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, hosted by Zibby Owens.
“One of the hardest parts about writing, especially if you’re kind of unknown and you don’t have a large following, is thinking, “What’s the point? I’ll never get published.”
“If there’s a will, there’s a way. This is coming from me. I literally moved to New York when I was twenty-two. I didn’t even major in English. My parents wanted me to major in marketing. They’re like, ‘You’ll make more money.’ I just decided I was going to go to New York. I’m going to walk door to door until someone gives me a job. If I’m an intern, that’s fine, which I was, and worked my way up. Then I couldn’t get an agent the traditional way, so I built a social platform. It took five years. If you love to do something, it will come. Have faith in yourself. Have faith in the process. Even if you need to self-publish, I think there’s no shame in that. Fifty Shades of Grey was self-published. Even if you go towards your goal that way, don’t be daunted by it. Once you start writing, I think the biggest thing is to just have faith in what you’re doing.
I have a Google Doc which I also might one day publish. I think it’s two hundred pages of quotes from writers giving advice. Much of the advice is just to get it all out. Get it all down. That’s what the first draft is for. Then the second draft, just rework it. I think it’s so daunting when you see the blank page. You need to just get it out even if it’s not good. Then you can rework it later. The other important piece of advice is from Dani Shapiro. I love her. Her book, Still Writing, is my bible. She has so many good quotes. I just love “build a corner.” That’s what people good at puzzles do. They do one piece at a time. They focus on the corner. I think it’s just staying calm and staying passionate and not getting discouraged by the process and not getting discouraged by when your friends are getting published and you’re not and feeling like it’s impossible. Anything worth doing is hard. If you have that burning desire, that’s enough proof that you deserve to be a writer.”
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