Many writing how-to writers — including one or two who have something worth reading — stand ready to help you pick a cookie-cutter approach to writing. You will receive guidance, for the type of writing (usually non-fiction), the subject (something you understand at depth), the goal (making a profit), and the method (everything from beta testers to web sites and blogs, to having (can you believe it?) a My Space page.
But.
I am here to tell you that you must find and respect your own writer’s voice. Without a sense of your writer’s voice, any advice about how or what to write will mean little, if anything. If you do not know your own voice, you can write anything (to no real purpose). If you copy some other voice, you will sound flat.
Who wants a writer’s voice that sounds like a dial tone?
None of us does.
So what can you do to find your voice?
■ Read good writing of the sort you want to produce.
■ Write on a schedule of your own making.
■ Seek feedback on your own terms.
■ Learn from your mistakes.
■ Forget everything and just write.
Read good writers
I read a lot of fiction roughly divided among mystery novels, spy novels, and novels of any stripe, especially first novels. Plus books on social media and self-publishing. I read a lot of books.
Writers write, and writers also read.
My first reason for reading is pleasure. Good writing delights me. My second reason for reading is instruction. My day-job work of preaching, as well as my writing, suffers when I ignore my needs and allow myself to squander my focus. I read at least two hours a day, on most days.
I also read bad writing.
It is easy to improve when you can spot bad writing and know something about what you would do to fix it. I will not suggest that you do this as an exercise (unless that is how you learn). Simply become aware of these things while you read. The explosion of eBooks at prices ranging from 99 cents to $3.99 ensures you a steaming heap of bad writing. Listen and learn. Stop when you can’t stand to read another sentence. You are only out a buck, and you got a penny back for your piggy bank.
Write on a schedule, any schedule
The books that tell you how to write books are likely to tell you that you must write every day, at the same time, and hit the same word-count goal each time. If you hang out at churches you will find many people who will tell you that you must read the Bible every day, at the same time and for the same length of time. They will say the same about prayer.
I have never found it possible or rewarding to read or write or pray according to someone else’s aggressive good advice. I notice, however, that I tend to write seriously about once a week. That is my rhythm. Notice that I am not talking about editing or revising. I do that constantly.
The point is to know yourself.
You do need to write, on some kind of schedule, if you wish to go beyond telling friends and strangers that you are, or want to be, a writer.
Writers write.
Although I tend to write at a weekly interval, I did post daily to a blog for almost three years — an online serial novel. I wrote two-and-a-half book-length (300 printed pages or more) manuscripts for my Grimoire series. I found the discipline to be much more than tolerable. I got results from an hour or less per day of effort. In fact, the first book manuscript, The Mystery Man Murders, after a year of daily posting, totaled 700 typed pages. The final edit produced a book of half that size.
I learned what a day at a time could do for my writing.
A blog allows you to put something out there every day or every week or on some other schedule. Or at random. It is your blog and your choice. The blog potential for exposure is worth a lot to you as a writer. Not so long ago, a writer would write in silence for months on end and at some point begin looking for agents and publishers while continuing to write into the void. This is the most lonely of places for writers.
Even if you restrict your blog to a few readers who participate by invitation or password, or if you have only a few readers that find you, you still will be amazed and gratified by your results, and you will not be alone, at any point in your process.
Seek feedback on your own terms
All those who would tell you how to write a book will usually agree that you must submit your precious stuff to others who are solemnly charged with giving you honest feedback.
No one who is healthy enjoys this, on either side.
Still, outside opinions are crucial if you want to grow in your ability to instruct and delight your readers. I was blessed by many years of newspaper work, from two years I spent part time as a cub reporter to 14 years of full-time work as a copy editor on two daily newspapers.
Somehow you need to find readers who love your stuff. There will be and must be also readers who scorn your stuff and seem to extend their scorn to you yourself. These two categories of readers are not only helpful; they also are inevitable. If you write for your own pleasure you have everything you need, right now. The rest of us need readers, including pissed-off readers who gleefully say they are former readers. We also need editors and mentors and copy editors, and someone to compare the page proofs to the ms.
How you do this is your business. Your call. Your cash.
Learn from your mistakes
Mistakes that concern writing come in at least two flavors — making mistakes in your own writing, and mess up the writing of others. Both flavors are tart and unpleasant but avoidable.
You will learn from the inner work of noticing yourself as a writer. You also will learn when you get feedback from others. Hate your mistakes and see them as sin, even, if that will be helpful for you. Resolve to do better by having a sense of what you did wrong the last time.
I have benefitted from therapy in my adult life, and I have learned as much about interpersonal dynamics as I have about personal dynamics. I have had many mentors and some detractors, and often in the same person, in my newspaper work.
Seek friends and foes, and as the singer says, No one can harm you; feel your own pain.
Just forget everything and write
Any time you wish, you can just sit down and write. Listen for the still, small voice inside you that knows what it wants to say. Listen for the voices outside of you that want a hearing. Tune yourself to the Spirit and write what you receive as gift.
It is not so important what you write.
It is important that you write.
You can always clean up later.
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