How to Be a Fabulous Writer in Three (Not-So) Easy Steps

with guest Jan Drexler.


Whew! I just got back from ACFW Nashville and I’m pumped! Ready to hit the keyboard and get my work-in-progress done!

Jan Drexler & Mary Vee

But I didn’t feel the same way at my first conference – ACFW Dallas in 2012.

I remember browsing through the bookstore in Dallas, scanning titles published by Revell, Zondervan, Bethany House, Thomas Nelson…and wondering why in the world did I think my books belonged in their company?

I should just give up.

But I got over that funk in a hurry. I went to my hotel room, looked at myself in the mirror, and said: “I am a writer. I have talent. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be fabulous. And I’ll never give up.”

And I didn’t give up. My fifth book is being published by Revell next month, and there are four more in the pipeline. That means signed contracts, books in various stages of completion, and a lot of BICHOK (Bottom In Chair, Hands On Keyboard).

I’m here to tell YOU – don’t give up. You can be a fabulous writer in only three (not-so) easy steps:

First Step: Develop your talent

Do you have talent for writing? You must, or you wouldn’t be here. This innate talent is one thing that draws us to writing. 

But talent by itself isn’t enough. 

I’ve always loved writing and books, so when it was time to pick a major in college, I chose English With A Creative Writing Emphasis. Very important-sounding, isn’t it?

But there was one problem. I had never taken one step to develop my talent. All through high school and college I garnered honors, opportunities and good grades…but I still hadn’t applied myself to my writing. 

I didn’t understand that I needed to develop my raw talent. Raw talent by itself is full of potential, like an egg in a nest. But undeveloped talent? Just think about what happens if something knocks that egg onto the ground before it’s ready to hatch.

Not a pretty picture, is it?

So how do you develop your talent?

1) Be a sponge. Soak up everything you can. Hang around experienced writers (aka Seekers!) and others who are learning just like you are (aka Seekervillagers!). At the beginning it seems like you know nothing, doesn’t it? And the more you learn the more you realize how vast this pool of information is that you’ve just dipped your toe into. I know that in my first months of visiting Seekerville I felt like I was drowning in details! It was definitely a steep learning curve.

But the key point here is that I did learn…and so will you.  

2) Seek out new avenues to learn your craft. One of the best ones I found (after Seekerville, of course!) is the series of monthly on-line courses that are included in the ACFW membership. What I learned from those courses made the cost of the membership seem like nothing!

Click on this image to see the courses up close and personal and clear.

Another great way to learn is to read craft books. I know all of the Seekers have their favorites. A couple of mine are “The Breakout Novelist” by Donald Maass, and “The Moral Premise” by Stanley Williams.


3) And most important: READ!

Reading is necessary to develop your writing talent. 

Someone told me years ago that in order to write well, you need to read well. 

What does that mean? It means that you read voraciously, constantly, widely, and deeply. You read inside your genre and outside your genre. You read classical literature, popular best-sellers, fiction, and non-fiction. You read authors you adore and authors you hate (although not quite as often). 

You learn by reading. You learn about the human condition, about God, about life. You learn how author A writes a descriptive paragraph, and you learn how author B writes scintillating dialogue. 

When an author’s writing grips your heart, you go back and read that passage again. You dissect it word by word to learn how that author connected so well with your feelings.

And when you’ve finished that book, you pick up the next one. You can never read too much!

Listen to Stephen King, not Albert Einstein. After all, which one of them is a fiction writer?

Second Step: Work hard

Writing isn’t easy. 

I know, I know. We’ve all seen these romantic images of the famous author dressed in a long, flowing white dress reclining in a hammock, thoughtfully nibbling at the end of her pen while birds sing sweetly over her head.

But that isn’t reality. Look around at your life. This is reality. And somewhere in your own reality, you need to make the time to BICHOK and write.

Why is writing so hard?

 Think of it this way -  there is no one right or wrong way to write. Every author has his or her own voice, own style, own quirks. You have your own story to tell, and no one can tell it for you. It comes from your heart and soul, not anyone else’s.

So how do you learn to tell your own story?

Write. Write whenever you can, wherever you can.

Write blog posts. The great thing about blog posts is that they are short, and you can experiment. What works? Complex sentences or simple ones? Dialogue or narration? Humor or pathos?

Write stories. Long or short, stories are where your writing really matures.

And whatever you do, write something every day. Staring at a blank paper never improves your writing. Neither does watching a television show or playing a game on Facebook. 

Writing primes the creative pump…so write!

Third Step: Persevere
 
Finally: Never give up. 

Writing is scary. Crazy scary.

What makes it so scary? 

At some point someone else will have to read what you wrote. 

That’s the core of it all, isn’t it? Your words in that document are drops of blood. Your blood. You have explored the darkest corners of your soul and placed each tender word into that story. 

It doesn’t matter if this is your first story or your fifteenth, when the moment comes to submit your work to a critique partner, a contest, or an editor, your finger hovers over the “enter” key, your throat fills and you hesitate as fear creeps in. 

But don’t stop there. Say a prayer and hit that button. 

If your manuscript comes winging back to you in cyber-space, don’t give up. Look at the feedback and learn from it. Make the changes you need to make and send it out again. Don’t let one rejection – or even ten rejections – stop you from seeing your story in print.

Now that we’ve covered all three steps, are you ready?

I have one more thing for you to do: 

Find a mirror. 

Look yourself in the eyes and repeat after me:

I am a writer.
I have talent.
I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be fabulous.
And I’ll never give up.

Are you ready? Which one of these steps is the hardest for you?

Leave a comment today to get your name in the coffee cup for a copy of Mattie's Pledge for one reader and for a 5-page critique for one writer. Winners announced in the Weekend Edition.

Jan Drexler brings a unique understanding of Amish traditions and beliefs to her writing. Her ancestors were among the first Amish, Mennonite, and Brethren immigrants to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, and their experiences are the inspiration for her stories. Jan lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband of more than thirty years, where she enjoys hiking in the Hills and spending time with their four adult children and new son-in-law. 
Find her here:
Website: www.JanDrexler.com
Facebook: 
Twitter
And on Mondays at the Yankee-Belle Café 
 
 

Preorder here.

Mattie's Pledge

When she feels the pull of both home and the horizon, which will she choose?

Mattie Schrock is no stranger to uprooting her life. Even as her father relocated her family from one Amish community to the next, she always managed to find a footing in their new homes. Now as the Schrock family plans to move west from Somerset County to a fledgling Amish settlement in Indiana, she looks forward to connecting with old friends who will be joining them from another Pennsylvania community—friends like Jacob Yoder, who has always held a special place in her heart.

Since Mattie last saw Jacob, they’ve both grown into different people with different dreams. Jacob yearns to settle down, but Mattie can’t help but dream of what may lie over the western horizon. When a handsome Englisher tempts her to leave the Amish behind to search for adventure in the West, will her pledge to Jacob be the anchor that holds her secure?

Tender, poignant, and gentle, Mattie’s Pledge offers you a glimpse into Amish life in the 1840s—and into the yearning heart of a character you’ll not soon forget.

Don’t Get it Right, Get it Written

with guest Terri Blackstock.

 Since this month is Speedbo month, I thought it would be appropriate to give you the best piece of writing advice that I’ve ever been given: Don’t get it right, get it written.

Many years ago, when I was starting out as a writer, I had a pile of unfinished manuscripts, each with only three chapters written. I would get a great idea, start writing, second-guess, rethink, rewrite, doubt, show it to someone, get bad feedback, rewrite again, and … finally, after months of working on those three chapters, I’d lose interest in that story and toss it into a drawer. Then I’d start a new book.

Then one day at a writer’s conference, I heard this principle, and it clicked. I went home, determined to write a first draft without judgment, without going back to change anything, without showing it to anyone. For the first time, I was able to fly through a manuscript, building momentum as I went. I resolved not to let anything interrupt that momentum. Because I knew the temptation to rewrite before I moved on, I didn’t allow myself to read what I’d already written before I started each day. I simply picked up where I left off and plowed forward.

I should mention here that I’m not going for magic in that first pass. My first draft is always really bad. Years ago, one of my great fears was that I would drop dead during a first draft, and out of a sense of nostalgia or sentimentality, my husband would show it to someone. The thought was horrifying, so very early on, he and I had an agreement that he was to burn any of my first drafts the very day I was hit by a bus or decapitated by a lumber truck. I told him often, just in case he got distracted by my sudden demise and forgot. It was as important as the fact that I wanted a closed casket and someone to clean my toilets before the mourners started arriving.

I have to admit, writing that first draft is drudgery, wrought with fear and dread as I force myself to get that story down. But those feelings instantly fade when I start the the second draft, because that’s when my creativity is allowed to flourish. That’s when I work on my prose and smooth out my scenes. That’s when my setting comes alive. That’s when I really get to know my characters. I no longer fear that I’ll never finish, because I’ve already finished it once. 

How to Plow Through a First Draft

In order to fly through my first draft, I have to do some preparation. I need a map to follow so I won’t get off course. It’s probably possible for seat-of-the-pantsers to write a first draft quickly, but they must have a better sense of direction than I have. Inspired by the storyboards that film-makers use, I’ve adopted my own version of storyboarding. Whereas film-makers draw pictures depicting their camera shots, I write out my scenes on index cards, which I used to tack to a big bulletin board. Now I’ve gotten rid of the board and use the index card feature of Scrivener. I still often handwrite the cards, but then I type the scenes onto the Scrivener cards so I can keep them neatly on the screen. 

I plot out the major arc of the story, with each scene that comes to my mind, spacing those scenes out accordingly. Then I plot backward if necessary, or I ask what happens next, and go as far as I can in both directions, making a card for each step. Then I look at the holes in the plot and figure out what should fill them. In the case of generalized cards, where it says something like, “She looks all over the country for him,” I try to figure out what that would look like in actual scenes. Would I show her going to Tulsa’s police department? Would she drive the streets of New Orleans? Who would she talk to? What would she learn? I jot those scenes on cards, then place them on the board where they should logically go.

Usually, I’m ready to start writing before I finish story-boarding, and I don’t want to quench that passion, so I focus most intensely on the first hundred pages of index cards first. Then I start that first draft. When I get to the end of the first hundred pages, I’ll take a day or so to pay meticulous detail to the index cards for the next hundred page segment. I don’t let myself go back and make changes. If I need to change something in the part I’ve already written, I make myself a note in brackets. It looks something like this: [CHANGE MARTY’S JOB FROM FIRE JUMPER TO MASSEUSE.] I will fix that on the next pass. But from that point on, I’ll just consider him a masseuse.

I’ll repeat that process for each hundred page segment until I’ve gotten to the end. Yes, my plot often changes as it’s in progress. Sometimes I don’t think of a plot twist until I’m at that point in the story, but then I just make some quick changes to my index cards so I can remember what I’ve done, and go on.

There have been times when my storyboard system breaks down, and I just can’t get a handle on the plot enough to write it. In that case, it’s helpful for me to go ahead and write a detailed synopsis for myself, so I can see how the whole story works on paper. It has much more detail than I would put in the synopsis I give to my editor, but once it’s finished, I then make changes to my storyboard to reflect what’s in the synopsis.

I know what you’re thinking. These steps sound like they slow down the process. But honestly, the storyboarding and writing of the synopsis usually don’t take more than a week. I don’t spend a lot of time on it. But once there’s enough on my board to map out a hundred pages, I let the horse out of the gate.

I hope this has helped you fly through your first draft for Speedbo month. If you don’t want to use index cards the way I do, at least take a few to post around your writing space. On them, pen the words, “Don’t get it right, get it written.” Make it your motto. Then avoid the instant gratification—or embarrassment—of showing your first draft to friends or writers’ groups for critiques (unless it’s just to show them that you’ve been putting in the work), and for heaven’s sake, don’t upload it to Kindle. Make a deal with your spouse and kids. That first layer is for your eyes only, until the end of time. Just get it down on paper as fast as you can. Then start all over, rewriting it until it sings. One level at a time, one draft after another, all on the flat foundation of that miraculous … and very messy … first draft.

Happy Speedbo Month! You can do it!

Terri Blackstock has sold over seven million books worldwide and is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. She is the award-winning author of Intervention, Vicious Cycle, and Downfall, as well as the Moonlighters, Cape Refuge, Newpointe 911, SunCoast Chronicles, and Restoration Series. Her latest book is If I Run.

See the complete list of Terri’s books at http://www.terriblackstock.com/books. Join her at Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/tblackstock) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/TerriBlackstock).

 

 If I Run (Zondervan)

Casey Cox’s DNA is all over the crime scene. There’s no use talking to police; they have failed her abysmally before. She has to flee before she’s arrested . . . or worse. The truth doesn’t matter anymore.

But what is the truth? That’s the question haunting Dylan Roberts, the war-weary veteran hired to find Casey. PTSD has marked him damaged goods, but bringing Casey back can redeem him. Though the crime scene seems to tell the whole story, details of the murder aren’t adding up. Casey Cox doesn’t fit the profile of a killer. But are Dylan’s skewed perceptions keeping him from being objective? If she isn’t guilty, why did she run?

Unraveling her past and the evidence that condemns her will take more time than he has, but as Dylan’s damaged soul intersects with hers, he is faced with two choices. The girl who occupies his every thought is a psychopathic killer . . . or a selfless hero. And the truth could be the most deadly weapon yet.


Terri has generously offered a copy of If I Run to one commenter. Leave a comment letting us know how your Speedbo is going. Or leave a question for Terri, or an observation on "Don't Get it Right, Get it Written." 
 
 

It's never too late to Speedbo. Details here.