WRITING ADVICE

THERE IS NO RIGHT WAY TO WRITE

Some people can only write in lined notebooks of a particular colour, others write in bed, or on the train or only when there is a full moon and an ‘r’ in the month.
None of that matters.
Some people work at four o’clock in the morning, or after midnight. Some only write when inspired and work solidly until the book is done – others keep regular office hours at their desk or set themselves work targets – so many hours a day/week/month or so many words a day/week/month. None of that matters either.
If you want to be a writer you have to find out what time, place and writing schedule works for you, though it helps, I think, to develop flexible working habits and not be too fussy about the kind of pen and paper you have to use, if only because manufacturers are prone to suddenly discontinuing certain lines. I have trouble planning on lined paper and I do like to use a fountain pen, but I have written ideas down on the back of a paper napkin with kohl pencil before now in desperation. 
If you are someone who needs a routine to get things done then try to develop a reasonably flexible one that will allow you to take advantage of good days. I’m not very good with routine, personally, and though I try to get to my desk by 10am I am probably a bit too flexible and on very bad days don’t make it to my desk at all.
Some writers develop rituals to help them get into the right mood to work. I used to always read the previous days output ( and have a cup of coffee) but I don’t always do that now (Read the work, I mean. I always have a coffee except when, to make life that little bit more interesting, I throw caution to the wind and have a tea.)
I know people who can only write by making it all up as they go along and others who plan in meticulous detail. I do a bit of both as you can see on this page.
Some people begin at the beginning of a book and write all the events in order until they come to the end, others write scenes out of order and stitch it altogether somehow so that you can’t see the joins.
Some people write a first draft that is little more than an outline of the plot and fill it out later, others write a full but sprawling first draft that has to be edited and shaped, while others write a pretty clean first draft that needs only minor tweaking later.
If you don’t know which type of writer you are, it is probably good to experiment with different approaches until you find a way that works well for you. You may also have to be prepared to change it later if for some reason it stops working. ( Sometimes nothing works but if you’re lucky those times won’t last for too long.)
I did a lot of writing before computers were widely used. I wrote all my essays at school long hand and, being quite fussy in those days, would have to write the whole thing out again if there were too many mistakes. I still like to try to get my writing as right as I can in my first draft and I don’t think too much about other ways in which I could have expressed myself. I rely heavily on my first thoughts and don’t tend to question what I’m doing too much. It has taken me a while to grasp that it is OK to change things later, that it is called editing and it can produce much better work.
If you’ve grown up with computers and editing is easy you may have the opposite problem which is a tendency to fiddle with a sentence or with a chapter and not to commit to one way of writing your idea. You might want to limit the amount of fiddling you do with your text before moving on – otherwise you could spend your life writing the perfect opening paragraph ( or opening sentence if you’ve got it really bad)
I could go on about the many different ways people generate ideas – loads of writers have ideas books and they work well for them. I don’t keep one because typing so much has ruined my handwriting (without appreciably improving my typing) and I can’t read what I scribble in moments of inspiration (especially when written in kohl pencil on a napkin). Some writers get a trillion ideas a day others of us make do with the odd one every now and again and make each idea work really hard – that doesn’t matter either.
There isn’t just one right way to write. Writers come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and personality types. If we don’t look alike, act alike or think alike – there is no way we are all going to work alike.

THE ONLY WAY TO BE A WRITER IS TO KEEP WRITING.

A writer is someone who writes – you can’t be a writer on the inside without actually indulging in the activity. I’m always being told by people that they’d like to write a book or that they might write a book when they find the odd five minutes in their busy lives, or that they could have written a book, but then something better came along and they did that instead. When people tell me they want to write I tell them to get on with it then – to sit down and write. (I am not always as tactful as I ought to be.) There is no magical formula for writing (see above.) You can only learn how to do it by doing it – so get started.
Starting, once you’ve actually made it to your desk or chosen workplace, is the exciting part. I like beginnings when a whole story stretches before me all new and shiny, all conceptual and full of possibilities. Beginnings are often easy for me, but at sometime – usually quite soon after the beginning it gets harder and you start to think that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. I think this happens to most writers at least some of the time.
Writing involves a certain amount of discipline and a determination not to give up.
It’s all about plodding on, battling through, fighting on etc which translates to sitting down and persisting, putting one word in front of another until the story takes off again.
There are probably writers who remain enthusiastic for every word of a project and I think I might hate them, if it were not for the fact that the difficult parts of a story are often the moments when you work out what the story is really about. I often find sticking points occur when I haven’t worked things out in enough detail, when I need to think a bit more or do more research, or when the story has taken a wrong turn and needs redirecting. For many people difficult days are part of the overall process and part of the job. Some people take time off when a story is not going well and come back to it later. Certainly that can help you to see the story more clearly, but I have found that writing through the tough spot is generally the best way to get through them.

WRITING IS GREAT FUN (EXCEPT WHEN IT ISN’T)

Writing is certainly the best job I’ve ever had, but like everything else it has its disadvantages. I am quite sociable and find working alone quite difficult which is why I make an effort to meet friends for coffee as often as I can in a probably futile attempt to keep me sane. It is also difficult to talk about writing to people who aren’t writing themselves. Listening to a half thought through plot is very dull and I’ve seen even loyal friends’ eyes glaze over when I get started on my latest plot problem.
Like all creative professions it brings its own disappointments. It’s a very competitive business, which is not (for most writers) terribly well paid. There are many extremely talented people writing children’s fiction at the moment so it is hard to get published, to get your book stocked in major book chains, to get reviewed and to make an impact. You have to be robust enough and confident enough to weather rejection, disappointment and criticism (but that is true of every other walk of life too.) You have to believe in what you’re doing and enjoy it enough to get through the times when you feel unappreciated and when you can’t find the right words. I celebrate everything, getting a contract, finishing a first draft, finishing the final draft, getting the proofs through, getting the jacket illustration, getting the finished book. It is great when you get praise and recognition, but a big part of being a writer is being able to motivate yourself.
When it is going well there is no better feeling. I like it best when I’m totally immersed in the story to the extent that I almost forget I’m writing it, when I’m typing as quickly as I can and when time disappears. It is fantastic.
Everyone I have ever talked to about writing has had bad days/weeks/months (even years) or found parts of every project very difficult. Like everything that is satisfying and rewarding it is sometimes hard graft – but the feeling of triumph you experience when you have finished a story is hard to beat.

THERE ARE MANY WAYS THROUGH THE FOREST

I thought after I’d finished ‘Warriors of Alavna’ - my first novel - that I knew how to write a book unfortunately all I knew was how to write ‘Warriors of Alanva.’ Each book requires new skills, new ways of making that particular story work.
I suppose all my stories have things in common – they’re bound to they all come from my imagination. They all involve transformations, betrayal, the power of love, death and sacrifice. Each book has had a slightly different structure and required me to write in a slightly different way. Each book has been a different writing experience and I hope that will always be true.
There are countless stories and countless ways of telling them. The best way to improve most things is through practice and writing is no exception. Even though each book or project brings new challenges, some things do get easier and your confidence grows with practice.I learned to write by writing but not everyone is happy learning that way.