A reader writes:
My name is NAME and I’m currently a junior at COLLEGE COLLEGE. My friend, NAME, who is in the same graduating class as me, referred me to your website. While I am a ACADEMIC MAJOR in a WORLD CITY right now, my true passion is writing poetry, and I’m trying to develop my skills in writing short stories. I am fairly certain that I want this hobby to become my career, but I don’t know where to even start! I will be the first person in my family to graduate with a 4-year degree, so I don’t have any relatives with applicable experience or knowledge. Do you have any advice on where to start?
I’ve been sitting on this question for months, and for our readers who are farther along in their writing careers I’m sure you understand why.
Where to start? Where to start? Is there a more impossible question to answer than WHERE TO START?
The advise that springs to mind is of the “just write” variety, advice that I will not give. “Just write” is dismissive and minimizing, like telling someone who’s clinically depressed that maybe they wouldn’t feel so crummy if they just lightened up and, you know, tried to have some fun and not worry so much all the time.
I couldn’t do that to you, NAME from COLLEGE COLLEGE. You say you have the desire. Very well. Now let’s put some shape to all that ambition. Let’s get you doing a web project.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
Mark Twain
Another way of approaching Twain’s advice is to take the “complex overwhelming task” and shrink it—in its entirety—until it’s small enough to be manageable.
Becoming a writer is a simple matter of mastering ideas, emotion, insight, subtext, research, writing, rewriting, polishing, publishing, marketing, publicity and finding, building and maintaining audience. You’re going to do all of those things, but on a scale you can handle.
Here’s what you need to do:
Pick the project
That memoir about your experiences growing up as the daughter of a cruel pineapple magnate is not a project. That’s your life’s work. A project is something like Skull-A-Day or SMITH Magazine’s Six-Word Memoirs. You will pick a project that is finite, manageable and low stakes, something like 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt.
Do the project
You will write your 36 poems about strawberry-banana yogurt. Or, if you are acting as an editor/curator, you will collect your 36 poems about strawberry-banana yogurt. (Per Doug’s comment, you will also need to set a deadline.)
Produce the project
Your project has to be public, but you’re not going to wait for permission. You’re going to put up a website (36PASBY.com is available, btw). You’ll do this yourself, or you’ll gain the invaluable experience of collaborating with other people who have different skills than you have. Either way you’re going to make it look rad.
Support the project
You will do all the things that people with “real” books do. You will throw a launch party. You will start a Facebook group (even if you are over Facebook). You will pitch a story to your local newspaper. (Again, if you’re up to the task, then collaborate. Doesn’t everyone know an aspiring publicist?)
Put an end to the project
The point of this exercise is to be quick and light and effective. If 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt takes off, then that’s great. If it doesn’t, then you will have already built in a sunset provision. Let your project be what it’s meant to be. Then walk away.
Rest
Rest is important. Rest now.
Asses the project
How did it go? What went wrong? What went right? What was in your control? What was out of your control? Be honest with yourself, but also be kind. It’s just a project.
Learn from the project
This whole time you’ve been (lightly) learning about what you do well, what you struggle with, what you think you could improve, what you’re always going to be hopeless at. Now take a moment to write down the lessons learned.
Rest again
Did I not mention that rest is important? Please rest again.
Do another project
Take what you’ve learned from the first project and do another one. And another. And another. And another. With a little hard work and luck these projects will grow in scope and size and important.
Then one day you’ll wake up to find that your next project is that memoir about growing up the child of a cruel pineapple magnate. Project and life’s work have become interchangeable. Fortunately, the muscles and skills you developed doing your web projects apply quite nicely. You’ll also find that you’ve managed to collect some friends, readers and collaborators along the way.
Then the book comes out, and you go on the radio, and the interviewer asks you how you got started as a writer, and you’ll smile and tell her about 36 Poems about Strawberry-Banana Yogurt and that story will absolutely kill.
You win. The end.
10 Comments
June 8, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I absolutely love this.
It’s why I promote the short form so much to writers. Everyone thinks they have to jump in with a novel, invest an inexperienced year or five into the work, and never actually “build a career.”
Short stories, people. Short stories. Projects. Whatever.
June 9, 2009 at 9:05 am
Glad you liked it, bets.
My only quibble is that mastering the short story can take a lifetime, too.
Plus, short stories can get you into that whole submission/rejection/approval-seeking model.
A web project is a notch down in difficulty, plus you don’t get penalized for doing it yourself.
Cheers.
June 9, 2009 at 11:51 am
This is great advice.
I’d add that I think it’s helpful to give yourself a specific deadline of some kind, e.g. 36 poems in 36 days (or 60 days or whatever amount of time you think is realistic/feasible but soon enough to create at least some pressure and add to the challenge).
When you’re just getting started in writing–and I’m kind of still at that point myself–it can be difficult to focus on writing while also dealing with everything else in life, be it homework, job, college life, etc. Deadlines will help you make sure you get the task done.
You don’t have to make the deadline public knowledge, but you should at least tell some friends. As noted in a a previous DCWYTBMA post, accountability to others is one of the best ways to ensure you get your task done. Sometimes I find it’s enough to just mention to a few friends that I’m planning to finish X Project by Y Date–I know that as the date approaches, they’ll ask me about it (and possibly gently taunt me if I’m behind schedule).
On that note, I am now going to write a proposal for an article about the social history of diners. And since I’ve said it in public, I may even finish it by my self-imposed deadline of the 5 p.m. today (not that I expect anyone who reads this to notice/care if I don’t …).
June 9, 2009 at 12:56 pm
“The social history of diners” sounds intriguing Doug. Care to keep us updated Dan Baum style on the fate of your proposal (and maybe even a synopsis of the story)? Good luck with it!
June 9, 2009 at 2:15 pm
This advice walks across the street and pistol-whips “write what you know” into bloody submission.
June 9, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Right. I don’t know if I read it here, or something David Halberstam said, or maybe Dan Baum: “Write what you don’t know. Discover it. Learn about it.” Isn’t that it? The investigation, entering into the lives of your sources, exploring what you didn’t know going in…the thing that keeps this process energized.
June 10, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I’m having trouble with the rest bit. And I understand the do another project. Sure. Absolutely. It’s the do-another-project-in-the-face-of-rejection-rejection-rejection I’m having also having trouble with. Maybe that goes back to resting. But sometimes you do all this work, real work, and it falls into a void.
And I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel that way. How do we avoid listening for the work to hit the bottom of void?
June 11, 2009 at 9:23 am
“How do we avoid listening for the work to hit the bottom of the void.”
mapelba– For me, this can become the most agonizing aspect of writing and distinguishes it I think from most other job/careers where generally the result of your effort can be immediately identified, qualified, quantified.
Here, we wait for an affirmation–an editor, publisher, agent. We can wait a long time. And each failure to achieve it can be seen as yet another crushing defeat. Ah, but then something we wrote and submitted hits home. Amazing how quickly our confidence is restored. Then the process starts all over again.
You’re not the only one.
June 11, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I know I’m not, Dennis Lang, but it is always nice to be reminded.
Maybe I’ll see you at the edge of the void throwing something in.
June 11, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I’m there frequently. I must admit the trusty right arm is still in good shape. I’ll be looking for you.