Iteration - it means you repeat it, you do it over and over again. And this ability, to iterate, is a writer’s greatest virtue. It is what separates him or her from all the other people who would like to be writers but who don’t sit down to write every day.
If you want to be a writer, especially a novelist, you have to be stubborn.
Writing a novel is about writing, reading what you have written and rewriting. It is about taking that second draft, reading it, rewriting and then rereading and again rewriting over and over again until it works.
Iteration.
If you want to be a writer, especially a novelist, you have to be obstinate.
In the process of writing a novel there is a lot of space for self-doubt. Can you take the knocks, do the rewrites, end up with seventy or one-hundred-thousand words, the vast majority of which are essential to the whole manuscript?
Make your own list of now famous novels that were turned down x number of times before some indomitable writer insisted that another publisher’s reader take a look at it.
Perseverance.
If you want to be a writer, especially a novelist, you have to be pig-headed.
Table of contents for Learning To Write
- Learning to Write I
- Learning to Write II
- Learning to Write III
- Learning to Write IV
- Learning to Write V
- Learning to Write VI
- Learning to Write VII
- Learning to Write VIII
- Learning to Write IX
- Learning to Write X
- Learning to Write XI
- Learning to Write XII
- Learning to Write XIII
- Learning to Write XIV
- Learning to Write XV
- Learning to Write XVI
- Learning to Write XVII
- Learning to Write XVIII
- Learning to Write XIX
- Learning to Write XX
- Learning to Write XXI
- Learning to Write XXII
- Learning to Write XXIII
- Learning to Write XXIV
- Learning to Write XXV
- Learning to Write XXVI
- Learning to Write XXVII
- Learning to Write XXVIII
- Learning to Write XXIX
- Learning to Write XXX
- Learning to Write XXXI
- Fictional Character
- How Many Plots Are There?
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Dec 15th, 2006 at 10:51 am
“stubborn obstinate pig-headed” OK my wife says I have all three!
I’m a writer….er…..unpublished writer all I need now is luck.
jb says: Oh, yes, Steve. You need luck to find a publisher. But you’re half-way there . . .
Dec 15th, 2006 at 11:47 am
An excellent book which examines the ways writers have changed their work is ‘Revising Fiction’ by David Madden. He takes dozens of specific examples. Also a great quote at the beginning: ‘The art of writing is rewriting.’ - Sean O’Faolain.
jb says: I don’t know the book. But I love the quote.
Dec 15th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
I’m only pig-headed to do with my writing, obstinate in my goals. Once I decided, after a ten year break, to get back into publishing, I didn’t falter. And I never will.
:o)
jb says: Oh, yeah, me too, only pig-headed in relation to the writing. The rest of the time I’m sweeter than Nita.
Dec 15th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
My second book (nonfiction) went to at least 20 publishers before Berkley picked it up. (Peter Workman turned it down, much to his regret, I am sure [heh, heh], since the book did very well.) When I look back on the 19 names of the editors to whom I sent my proposal lo those many years ago and who rejected it, I realize that I wasted my time and theirs. They looked like the correct recipient (trade paperback, nonfiction), but they were not. I accidentally hit an interested editor. Lucky me.
I’d approach the whole process of pursuit of literary agent and/or editor very differently today, and, yes, I agree, you’ve really got be persistent.
jb says: Hi Lynne. Do tell us how you’d approach it today.
Dec 16th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Here’s one:
I tell writers who cannot find a literary agent or editor to go to the bookstore and find books of the same genre that have sold really well, read the acknowledgement in the front of the book to find the name of the literary agent or editor, READ the book(s), make some positive comparisons, and incorporate them in a very personal sounding (perhaps, er, even slightly flattering) query letter.
See John Barlow’s recent post, The Whole Hog, and you’ll see what I mean…
Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing
PS Did you see my px with editors Ron Hogan and Sarah Weinman on http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat Thursday? Too much fun!
jb says: Thanks for the tip. I expect there’ll be a few well-researched letters like that landing on agents’ desks in the next few months.
And yes, I’d seen the John Barlow post, but didn’t mind reading it again after you mentioned it.
Not so much luck with your px on mediabistro, though. Have they taken it down?
Dec 16th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
Ah, here’s the picture of Lynne at the Galleycat party.