I am reading Stephen King's On Writing, his treatise on writing fiction. I highly recommend it to everyone, writers and non-writers alike, because it's very entertaining. King is witty and humorous here, a side we don't see in his novels of the dark and macabre.
On Writing gives you insight into the mind of one of the most successful novelists of our time.
I also suspect that what he says about writing can be applied, with personal and intelligent adjustment, to one's own current career.
Here's a quote from the book:
With the door shut, downloading what’s in my head directly to the page, I write as fast as I can and still remain comfortable. Writing fiction, especially a long work of fiction, can be a difficult, lonely job; it’s like crossing the Atlantic
Ocean in a bathtub. There’s plenty of opportunity for selfdoubt. If I write rapidly, putting down my story exactly as it comes into my mind, only looking back to check the names of my characters and the relevant parts of their back stories, I find that I can keep up with my original enthusiasm and at the same time outrun the self-doubt that’s always waiting to settle in.
This is the same trick that Natalie Goldberg, poet, painter, and author of Banana Rose employs. Write fast! Do your writing practice and write faster than your Internal Editor can catch up with you. Don't think too much, Nat says, in her rules for writing practice:
When you sit down to write, whether it’s for ten minutes or an hour, once you begin, don’t stop. If an atom bomb drops at your feet eight minutes after you have begun and you were going to write for ten minutes, don’t budge. You’ll go out writing.
2. Lose control.
Say what you want to say. Don’t worry if it’s correct, polite, appropriate. Just let it rip.
3. Be specific.
Not car, but Cadillac. Not fruit, but apple. Not bird, but wren. Not a codependent, neurotic man, but Harry, who runs to open the refrigerator for his wife, thinking she wants an apple, when she’s headed for the gas stove to light her cigarette. Be careful of those pop-psychology labels. Get below the label and be specific to the person.
4. Don’t think.
We usually live in the realm of second or third thoughts, thoughts on thoughts, rather than in the realm of first thoughts, the real way we flash on something. Stay with the first flash.
5. Don’t worry about punctuation, spelling, grammar.
6. You are free to write the worst junk ever.
7. Go for the jugular.
If something scary comes up, go for it. That’s where the energy is. Otherwise, you’ll spend all your time writing around whatever makes you nervous.
Creativity guru Julia Cameron has written lots of books on creativity. In these books she showers you with hundreds of exercises for examination and self-discovery. She also prescribes the same formula. Write fast.
So you have a story or an idea of a story in your head right now. This essay ends here. Go! Write! Do it fast! Burn through to original thoughts.
