Sure, not every chapter, every scene, in the book has exactly hit the mark. I didn’t even hit it the fifth time.īut by the tenth draft I finally started figuring it out, and now that the eleventh draft is complete, I’m finally starting to recognize that the story I’ve been passionate about for three years now is finally coming together in a way I always hoped for. I didn’t hit that mark the first time, or the second time. ![]() That first day I started writing the novel, I had a clear idea in my head of what I wanted to accomplish, what mark I wanted to hit. ![]() I recently completed the eleventh draft of my MFA thesis novel, a book I started working on in February 2017. Another chance at shooting an arrow at the mark. In a sense the revision process is like trying to shoot the arrow at the mark, and, almost always, missing. I’ve messed up whole sections of my first drafts and have had to start all over months down the road. What I believe Emerson is saying here is that when you write your latest story, you’re not always going to get the mark, especially when you’re pounding away at the keyboard on a first draft. It’s sort of odd and goofy but also extremely wise. This is one of my favorite writing quotes I’ve read in a long time. The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent. They help make you a smarter, more creative person each day you engage in the writing process!ģ. It’s a good thing to be brimming with ideas, four or five or more that are just itching to be put down on the page. Who’s seen through plenty of failure what kinds of stories I need to gravitate to more often and what stories I might want to leave behind for awhile. One that still has a lot to learn, but one who’s definitely grown a lot. They helped stretched my mind to new dimensions. Whether or not these books make me riches is besides the point. In the last ten years I’ve written twenty novels, and those are twenty novels that would still be bouncing around my brain today if I hadn’t done the right thing and written them down. Stephen King once said that part of the reason he became a writer was that there were just so many ideas cluttering up his mind and he needed to get them down on the page before he went clinically insane. It always boggles my mind to think of people who have the desire the write, and lots of great ideas that fill up their head, and then never write a single word of those ideas down. The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions. They will see that only you could have written this particular tale, and they’ll want to go with you from now on wherever else you go.Ģ. The thing is that you will succeed in the long run if you write for yourself because readers will see the passion in the storytelling. A reader understands what authors are writing stories to express themselves and what authors are writing to try to make a quick buck. The problem is that readers can sniff out a phony a mile away. You might try to write a similar kind of story and use similar kind of language. You want to write a horror novel and you might find yourself trying to copy other horror novels of the last thirty years that were runaway blockbusters. ![]() Something that’s so hard to learn about writing, especially when you’re just starting out, is that in the long run you will actually have more success if you write for yourself than if you write for a specific kind of audience, for a specific kind of market. Look at this, a man who died nearly 140 years ago, and here’s a writing tip that’s still more relevant than ever! He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. Here are some fantastic words of wisdom from Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was a poet, philosopher, lecturer, and essayist, certainly one of the most famous writers of the nineteenth century.
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