Category: Inspiration for your writing

Need some in­spir­a­tion for your writ­ing? Some ideas to help get the juices flowing.

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The worst part of writing a book

I really like writ­ing books but there’s one part I hate. And it sneaks up on me every time.

After hav­ing sev­er­al books pub­lished, you’d think I’d learn. But nope, there seems to be a big blank spot in my memory about writ­ing a non­fic­tion book.

It’s an ugly, nasty, teeth-gnash­ing phase so no won­der I for­get it. In fact, the only time I think about it, is when I’m right in the middle of it. Which is where I am right now.

I refer to it as the @#$*! stage of writ­ing a book. Some folks call it the first draft.

No, this is­n’t me. But this is how I of­ten feel when I’m in the @#&%! stage of writ­ing a book.

This is where I have to take all my re­search and put it into some sort of co­hes­ive or­der. That means de­cid­ing what goes in what chapter – and worst of all – de­cid­ing what’s in­cluded and what gets left out.

I know from past ex­per­i­ence that in­triguing facts and fas­cin­at­ing an­ec­dotes will be cut due to the con­straints of space and in the in­terests of flow. I can deal with that. It’s just all the de­cisions I need to make right now. Hours are spent star­ing at the com­puter screen, shift­ing text here and there and mut­ter­ing away. By the end of the day I swear my brain is sweating.

Sometimes I think of this stage of a book like go­ing for a long walk in a forest. There are many trails to take, each of­fer­ing dif­fer­ent ex­per­i­ences, some more ex­cit­ing or chal­len­ging than others.

On rough days I liken it to climb­ing a rock face. Concentrating and know­ing where to put my feet and hands (or facts and an­ec­dotes) is crit­ic­al. At times the top of the moun­tain seems im­possibly far away.

Once in a while I won­der why the heck I’m do­ing this. But a glance down tells me I’m closer to the top than the bot­tom. And I know when I reach the sum­mit, I’ll for­get all about the @#$*! stage of writ­ing a book again.

So I keep climb­ing. Writing my book one chapter, one para­graph, one word at a time.

 

 

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Secrets to being a successful writer

James Lee Burke. Photo by Robert Clark
The re­wards of be­ing a suc­cess­ful writer are ob­vi­ous. Completing an art­icle, short story or book brings a huge sense of per­son­al sat­is­fac­tion. And see­ing your work in print cre­ates its own ad­ren­aline rush.

Then there’s the fame factor, no less en­joy­able even if it is just the “big fish in a small pond” vari­ety. And, of course, there’s the pos­sib­il­ity of fin­an­cial gain.

But have you ever thought about what it takes to be a suc­cess­ful writer? A cer­tain amount of writ­ing skill is ne­ces­sary and even more im­port­ant is a good story idea.

However, when you get right down to it, I sus­pect one of the most crit­ic­al ele­ment of suc­cess is persistence…and a thick skin.

That’s right, the old say­ing, “Writing is 99 per cent per­spir­a­tion and 1 per cent in­spir­a­tion,” is really true.

And even if you’re a dis­cip­lined, ded­ic­ated writer, you need a sys­tem for sub­mit­ting your work and deal­ing with rejection.

Award-win­ning au­thor James Lee Burke is one of my fa­vour­ite writers. As well as telling a good story, he cre­ates a vivid sense of the land­scape and the people that in­hab­it it. And his char­ac­ters pos­sess a depth and com­plex­ity not soon forgotten.

Burke, now 75, had his first short story pub­lished in a col­lege magazine when he was in his 20s. By the time he was 34, he was the au­thor of three suc­cess­ful novels.

Then came a long, dry patch. Burke didn’t stop writ­ing; he just couldn’t get published.

So he de­veloped a meth­od for deal­ing with his grow­ing stack of re­jec­tions. When a short story was re­turned, he gave him­self 36 hours to get it back in cir­cu­la­tion. He’s used that pro­ced­ure for 45 years. “If you keep your story at home, you’re en­sured to lose,” he wrote in a 2002 New York Times article.

Burke fol­lows the same philo­sophy when it comes to books. His fourth nov­el, The Lost Get Back Boogie, was pub­lished in 1986.

After it had been re­jec­ted 110 times.

James Lee Burke’s fourth novel.
“I’d pub­lished three nov­els in New York then went 13 years without a hard­back pub­lic­a­tion,” Burke wrote. “That many re­jec­tions is sup­posedly some kind of re­cord in the industry.” 
 
Not long after it was pub­lished, The Lost Get Back Boogie was nom­in­ated for a Pulitzer Prize.  Since then Burke’s had an ad­di­tion­al 26 nov­els published.

So now, whenev­er some­thing I’ve writ­ten gets re­jec­ted I tell my­self to “Burke it.” Just turn it around and get it back out there. Because, hey…you nev­er know.

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Writing the first sentence of a book

Eighteen months ago I shif­ted my fo­cus to cou­gars, the sub­ject of my next book. After a peri­od of in­tense re­search, I began or­gan­iz­ing all the in­form­a­tion I’d gathered.

It was an im­mense job that in­volved sort­ing through a Bankers Box full of files and an equally massive amount of in­form­a­tion saved on my hard drive. And then one day it was done.

“What now?” I wondered. Then it hit me: it was time to start writ­ing the book.

But how? I knew what I wanted to say but what about that all im­port­ant first sen­tence? I searched my mind. All I found was an im­age of the Sahara desert, a totally empty land­scape stretch­ing into in­fin­ity. Just like the blank screen on my computer.

A knot of pan­ic formed in my chest. Breaking the house­hold rule of not in­ter­rupt­ing each oth­er when we’re writ­ing, I rushed into Rick’s of­fice. “It’s time to start writ­ing my book and I don’t know what to do,” I announced. 

“It hap­pens to me every time I write an art­icle,” he replied then con­tin­ued tap­ping away on his keyboard.

I trudged back up­stairs and shuffled some pa­pers around on my desk. I called my mom. I made a cup of tea. I changed the wa­ter in the dog’s bowl. And then I laughed. I was em­ploy­ing the old­est writ­ing trick in the world – procrastination.

My brain is sharpest in the morn­ing and by then it was late af­ter­noon so I let my­self off the hook for the day. The next was filled with er­rands down­town but the day after that…I had to start the book.

I wondered how I’d ever found the elu­sive first sen­tences of my oth­er books. To be per­fectly hon­est, at that mo­ment, I had no idea. The whole concept of writ­ing the first sen­tence of a book seemed daunt­ing, per­haps impossible.

People new to the craft of writ­ing of­ten ask me for ad­vice. So I asked my­self what I’d tell them about start­ing a book. At least that was a ques­tion I could an­swer. “Just jump in and do it,” I’d say. “Don’t worry about it too much, you can al­ways change it later. Something will come to you eventually.”

And the next morn­ing, while I was walk­ing the dog, it did.

Heavily fall­ing snow covered our boot prints al­most as soon as we made them. The fat white flakes, the forest around us and the ar­rival of twi­light meant vis­ib­il­ity was fad­ing fast. And right in front of us, filling with snow as we stared, were the large foot­prints of a cougar….

It might not be per­fect and would prob­ably change over time. But, at last, I had a way in. I could start the book.

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One way to achieve your writing goals

Writing is primar­ily a sol­it­ary pur­suit. Writers need chunks of un­in­ter­rup­ted time to think about their story and get it down.

But it’s all too easy to do too much think­ing and not enough writ­ing. To prom­ise your­self you’re go­ing to fin­ish chapter five this month…and then find that all you’ve done is move a few words around on your com­puter screen.

That’s when hav­ing a writ­ing buddy can make a dif­fer­ence. This is someone you can share your dreams and doubts with, as well as your struggles and successes.

A paint­ing from Bev’s Forest series.

One of my best writ­ing bud­dies isn’t even a writer. Bev Byerley’s a West Coast paint­er with a pas­sion for land­scape. Just like me, she needs time to think and work. And she grapples with the shapes of clouds and trees the way I wrestle with the sound of phrases and paragraphs.

I was sur­prised to dis­cov­er that the cre­at­ive pro­cess is sim­il­ar no mat­ter what the me­di­um. And I en­joy the ca­marader­ie of get­ting to­geth­er with an­oth­er artist.

My oth­er writ­ing buddy is a writer. Caroline Woodward is the au­thor of sev­er­al books and count­less poems. She used to live in the same town as me. We’d meet for lunch every couple of months to yak about our latest pro­jects, the re­jec­tions or ac­cept­ances we re­ceived from pub­lish­ers and oth­er as­pects of the writ­ing life.

Then her hus­band got a job on a light­house and she fol­lowed. But

Last fall Caroline toured BC with her new adult nov­el, Penny Loves Wade, Wade Loves Penny, as well as her new chil­dren’s book, Singing Away the Dark. 

be­fore she left, we vowed to email each oth­er on the first day of every month. These emails in­clude our writ­ing goals for the com­ing month and a pro­gress re­port on what we ac­com­plished the pre­vi­ous one.

We’ve been do­ing this for a couple of years now and are both sur­prised at how this one email a month helps keep our writ­ing on track. Without plan­ning it, we’ve ar­ranged a sys­tem that in­cor­por­ates sev­er­al im­port­ant tips re­com­men­ded by goal set­ting experts.

The first one is to make a com­mit­ment by telling someone what you plan to do. The second is to form a con­crete plan by writ­ing it down. And the third is to be ac­count­able by telling someone what you achieved…or didn’t.

So, if you have a lot of ideas but have trouble ac­com­plish­ing them, I re­com­mend find­ing a cre­at­ive buddy. This should be someone you like, feel com­fort­able with and admire.

Ideally, each of you will have slightly dif­fer­ent areas or levels of ex­pert­ise so you can learn from each oth­er. But most of all, you should both be pre­pared to listen and of­fer con­struct­ive feed­back. Laughing a lot is good too.