writing: getting started

Recently, several people have asked about the process of writing, and how a person goes about writing a book.

While there are plenty of books and guides available today to walk new and would-be writers through precisely that process, there's no substitute for the wisdom of experience—and for each writer, new and accomplished alike, that experience is different. Each writer has his or her own organizational style, unique methods of preparation, superstitions, scheduling eccentricities, and preferred tools (e.g., writing long-hand on legal pads, using CopyWrite software on an iBook)—individual tried-and-true tricks to getting the job done. And there's still room for experimentation.

I currently have one book in print and two others in the process of revision—not to mention the projects that haven't yet made it past the first couple of chapters. For both fiction and non-fiction, writing seems to be a different process every time. The best piece of advice that I can offer, however—and that pretty much every other author has echoed—is to simply stick with it, especially when you're convinced that all you're doing is churning out absolute crap. That's what editing is for.

I'm currently reading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley; I'd only been required to read an excerpt of this while in high school, and I've been wanting to get to the full book ever since. What amazes me is Steinbeck's deep level of honesty about himself—about how he couldn't think of anything clever to say on the spot and so kept himself awake at night listing everything he would have said instead if he'd thought of it; how every time he sat down to begin work on a new book, he was convinced that it would end up being a complete failure; and that once he did get started, he was convinced he'd never be able to finish the story properly.

These were the obstacles that Steinbeck—a Pulitzer Prize winning author—was still trying to surmount in his late 50s and early 60s. If that's not both humbling and encouraging to first-time and published-but-still-struggling authors, then I don't know what is.

I also keep in mind Hemingway's assertion that "the first draft of anything is sh*t."

Two books on the writing process by established authors that I've enjoyed are Stephen King's On Writing, and Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake. Granted, Vonnegut wasn't seeking to write a book on writing; instead, he was so repulsed by his first draft of Timequake that the final story is interrupted by side-chapters in first-person about how frustrated he is with it, and how he got started as a writer while working as a car salesman.

Another great resource is Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! Although intended as a guide for getting through National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) held across the globe each November, Baty also offers some great tips for how to get started on a writing project, and how to keep yourself working on it even when you want to throttle all of your characters and then yourself (and, yes, we ALL have those moments, even when writing non-fiction).

Wayne Dyer offers great advice: Before he begins writing each day, he centers himself and prays to the Universe that he might be of service; then he lets it flow through him from there. Not a bad space to be in, and it does work.

The biggest trick is to simply get over yourself. Let go of your expectations about what your project should or shouldn't look like when you're done with it. Leave your anxieties and insecurities at the door. Trust yourself. Don't waste time agonizing over the best vocabulary word or the wittiest turn of phrase. (Again, that's what editing is for.) Just sit down and do it, and don't worry about it being utter garbage—the first draft always will be.

Now, if I could just get pumped about applying the above to the revision process.... Grr.