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Writing a Novel 2nd lesson and a half

Writers and each individual thinking or daydreaming about writing read writer references. Blogs on writing are as prolific as the writers that write and manage these web logs. Books on the craft, the process, the techniques of writing have whole shelves in bookstores and libraries. Stephen King, Janet Evanovich and Ann Lamott wrote books on writing and or how to write or the writing life. Magazines focused on writing include Writer's Digest, Writer's Journal and Poets and Writers.  

The biggest mistake a new writer makes is to copy success. To believe that a formula for writing exists and that once he or she discovers it and follows it, success will come easy, is a time consuming error that can become a setback. A writer's greatest asset is originality. Finding his or her own voice is just the beginning. He or she, okay I, needed to learn my uniqueness. I needed to recognize the experiences that shaped me and that only I will put into words. I needed to give voice to my feelings, the flutteration that is not a word, the emotion that is unnamed, that I have never read, felt, in another's writing. I needed to focus on the distractions, the kind kids, the hurting husband, and the fueling friend, to enrich my quiet writing. I needed to discover me, not some formula.

Writing as a hobby results in self knowledge, but writing as a career requires that the writer use that self knowledge intellectually, emotionally, spiritually without discarding a single aspect of the soul, the integrated person that writing uncovered. Writing a novel is an investment in the writer's self, but if the writer plans to submit his or her work, it becomes a marketable product. But that is a different series of blogs. Someday I may write selling a novel series of blogs, but must complete this writing a novel blog. You have to have a product to sell a product.

During my process I have learned that getting ahead of myself is one of my original quirky abilities as a hobby writer, but something I must control when I am writing professionally.

Reading writers references aids a writer, but a writer must decide which writing advice and information is useful. Reading it all is recommended, but implementing it  all is discouraged, at  least by me.

At that point in my novel writing experience I had written over two hundred thousand words and skimmed hundreds of writing reference books, but I had never finished a novel. A writer has not written a novel until he or she has finished a novel. I forced myself to finish my first rough draft of my novel HALF HEARTED STRESS TEST last year, December 2009! I am polishing the novel, working on finishing others, and plan on submitting novels next year. However like I wrote earlier that is another blog!

Writing a Novel 2nd lesson

Before reading reference books on how to write or not write and after learning to ignore the inner critic or self doubter or whatever the creative writer in you wishes to call the evil hater voice inside of you, as an aspiring novelist, a writer, you need to WRITE!

Instead of reading advice on how to write a novel you need to write one, or at least start one. Certainly writing can be learned from books, but the practice of putting letters together to create words to create sentences to create paragraphs to create, ah, well, whatever the creative writer in you wishes to create from words, that is a skill, a craft that needs hands on experience.

Another novelist can write about writing a novel. Can write the absolute truth, Can describe the process step by step, but until I wrote everyday, in my journal, until I had written more than a hundred poems, until I had started three novels and finished several short stories I had no hope of writing a completed manuscript. A novel is a process, but a personal one, and another novelist's step by step instructions, blueprints, were meaningless until I had my own measuring tape,hammer and nails. Until I had my own tools. I read Deborah Macomber's essay on the topic of a writer's tool belt in 2008 or 2009 Writer's Market. She is a very good creative writer.

Check out her words after you write!!!