Friday, October 15, 2010

Keep writing

“There’s nothing that will teach you how to write more than writing,” she says.
Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse series (HBO's True Blood).

I had wandered into a writing website with a few minutes to graze and found myself avoiding the articles on tips and techniques and how-to start up writing or keep going.  I was even avoiding the articles on stirring the imagination and finding ways to break through writing barriers.  I will usually give every one of those articles a vast amount of attention.  I will scarf up every morsel of information that tries to tell me to do it this way or that.  I am willing to listen and dig for ways to try to improve and make my writing that much better. I have been known to not put a single word down until I equip myself with as many rules and ways to do it with the only idea being that I do it right.
That day on the website I just did not want to hear another word about someone else's way to do it right.  I think possibly too much information can lead to overload and it doesn't always apply to everyone the way it might be intended.  I should have known I would be one on the outside of how this would normally work for the majority.  I was looking to learn again but didn't want their prescribed medication.
Then I wandered into an article about author Charlaine Harris.
I've read her series of books.  I've watched the first two seasons of the HBO series based on those books.  It was a good article and you can tell she writes because she loves to write.  It's not fancy, she was not trying to fit into a genre.  She said it was fun and it was some twenty years from the time she had been writing until the HBO executive randomly selected her book from an airport shop, read it and loved it.
She only reluctantly gave the quote I placed at the top of this post after prodding.  She obviously doesn't normally like to give advice on writing.  I don't believe it's because she is smug or trying to be unhelpful.  I think it's because she is very down to earth and doesn't think much more about writing except that she loves to do it and she doesn't think too hard about how.
Then only when someone insisted on her giving advice, the one piece she gave was a reinforcement, yet again, of what I know to be the only rule of writing.  (Or are there 9 million point five rules?)
So the best advice, even given reluctantly by someone who doesn't think too hard about how, is that there is no other way except to keep writing.
TT
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Here is the article:
http://writersdigest.com/article/charlaine-harris-true-blood/

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