I've written a lot of words. I've read a lot of words. I've completed drafts and edited them. I've improved my writing a lot and have received plenty of compliments from those who should know. I'm at a stage where I am, mostly, a decent to good writer. But I haven't submitted much, and I've yet to give something I'm comfortable in submitting over and over (which says either I submitted too early the first time, or lack sufficient confidence in what I've done, or both).
I am no longer a new writer learning to be good. I am a good writer trying to learn to be consistent, to be persistent, and to - hopefully; maybe - be a professional.
And I don't see a lot said about this step.
Most writing advice seems to focus around those learning to be good. There's a reason for this. There's more new writers looking to become good. The newer writers are more likely to be searching for the truth and less likely to be relying on the support networks they have built. Their problems are more likely to have been experienced by others, while those of us in the intermediate steps have built very particular questions about what we should do next that, while comparable to other writers' problems, are individual enough that generic lists of advice don't quite do it.
Nevertheless, it is strange to reach this place and look around for some maps and see... nothing?
To a certain extent, this is right and proper. Myself and those like me are at a stage where should be drawing our own maps. A quote from Matsuo Bashō I saw recently that I found very resonant is:
“Do Not Seek To Follow In The Footsteps Of The Wise. Seek What They Sought.”
Trying to do the same things that other writers who've made it is counter-productive. You are not them. And indeed, one of the things I'm currently struggling with is the sense of being able to have my exact voice and focus without losing all the lessons I've learned, which I think involved a little on that. Going to link to a good article by Malinda Lo on that tomorrow.
But what exactly, with huge specificity, did they seek? What are we prospecting for here?
I think - I suggest - that the answer here is "a finished manuscript that they are willing to see go before the eyes of the public." Some will have had steps before that, and some will have been thinking more about the steps beyond, but that manuscript seems like it must have been a commonality.
When I write it out that, I have to admit that the main demand there isn't quality, it's being willing to say "out it goes and I'll take my lumps". Nobody wants one of those lumps to be "I don't think you really did your best here" or "Mother of chrome this is just awful" but, once you've got some faith in yourself, it has to be risked. I'm reminded of a David Gemmell interview that I once saw and now can't find in which he said he didn't believe most authors improved their work for extra polishing. Maybe he's right, maybe he isn't, but maybe it's most practical to act like he's right.
Maybe it's very useful for a writer, a would-be author, to think in terms of "How do I stop getting in my own way". To stop redrafting a scene over and over because we're not quite happy with it and because not everyone who reads it is quite happy with it and just send it out there to find the person who does love it.
I would love for there to be something clever and "Aha" here but bluntly I do not see it.
I would it if there was more advice for people in my place but I accept it's difficult.
That said, this is my advice to me - and a few others who think they need it when they read it - and that is, once you know you've got talent, to stop worrying and start taking shots.
And maybe one day we will reach the place where we are wise ourselves.
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