Over on Substack, I’m talking about how to get better at writing–not how to get published, not how to market, but how to actually improve your craft.
Plus: a little writing journal advice and a small shout-out to those of us who need permission to write absolute garbage first drafts.
You can find it her: Liz Writes Books | Substack | How do I get better at writing?
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All this talk about the Clean Reader app reminds me of a copy of Timeline I found in the damaged bin at the used book store back in 2003.
I had this book at home–it’s one of my all-time favorites–but I was curious about this particular copy. It was in near perfect condition. Even the dust jacket, which I barfed on years ago and had to throw out, looked brand new. Not the kind of book you’d expect to find in the damaged bin.
Things started to make sense when I opened to the title page.
Spy code? Poorly encrypted Swiss bank account number?
Nope. Just a list of all the pages containing the fuck word.
Fuck words which someone took upon themselves to white out and strikethrough.
You know, just in case.
Lest you think this person a prude, s/he apparently did not take issue with the word asshole.
Or I guess more accurately s/he only takes issue with fucking ones?
Regardless, this book has become one of my favorite books, probably because it reminds me so much of the time my grandmother confiscated a romance novel I was reading because it had the word nipple in it, and how grateful I am she never thought to buy a bottle of Wite-Out.
What are you reading right now?
Yesterday I binged a lot of middle grade chapter books, some of them new, but others from the 80s/early 90s. Today’s been a lot of romantic suspense. Who knows what tomorrow holds??
series or standalone or companion novels?
I like series and standalones. Not a huge fan of companion novels or series novels where each book is narrated by someone new in first person.
This is a total loser question (I fail at life): how do you make time to read and write? When I’m writing I tend to only want to write and vice versa.
I make time to read like I make time to do everything else: I pencil it into my schedule. Just like work. Just like writing. Writing won’t make you a better reader, but reading will always make you a better writer.
Anonymous asked:
Q&A: Sometimes when I sit down to read a book, I get distracted by how much better/worse the book is from my WIP. Is this normal? Does this ever happen to you?
Only all the time!
That feeling you’re feeling–get a good feel for it. Because its name is Insecurity, and the next time you sense it hanging around, you’ll want to give it the holiest of all holy smack downs.
Think of Insecurity as little mind roaches. (I know. That IS a disgusting metaphor!) It scurries around, hiding in the darkest crevices of your psyche, carrying all sorts of disease and pestilence.
And the more you feed it, the more it breeds, dude. Like, it’s not even funny.
So now you’ve got millions of these little mind-roaches scurrying around inside your mind, telling you to compare yourself to other people.
Sometimes you’ll come out ahead. You’ll look at your work and compare it to theirs, and your work will come out ahead. This is called Pride.
Sometimes you’ll come out on the losing side. You’ll look at your work and compare it to theirs, and your work will look like a two-year-old’s macaroni art compared to their Picasso. This is called Jealousy.
Insecurity’s only goal is to measure itself against other people. It wants to know how it measures up–that you measure up–against everything else. And when that happens, you’re so consumed by these little measuring bugs that you never let yourself do or be anything else.
Have you ever tried to be happy for someone while at the same time mulling over what her success means for your success? It can’t be done. You can either be insecure or happy, but you can’t be both.
So the next time you sit down to read a book, read the book. And don’t compare it to anything. Set yourself aside, and give someone else your full attention for a few minutes.
This is SO much harder to do than to type, by the way. You’ll probably need some practice at it. But eventually you’ll get back to that place where you can place your work and someone else’s work side by side and let both be OK, imperfections and all.
Anonymous asked:
Are there any book classics that you do not like or have not read? (We’are reading Moby Dick in high school and I don’t like it!)
Oh, there were SO MANY.
Because as much as I loved reading, I did not always love reading what my teachers or our school system wanted me to read.
(The infinite loathing I feel for COLD SASSY TREE is well-documented in the journals of fourteen-year-old me.)
But there were also quite a few gems in there. Like THE GREAT GATSBY, which was beautiful and sad and taught me that all the best books have gobs of sex and booze in them.
And the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Lord Byron, which also has a lot of sex and booze in it.
(Byron, anyway. Dickinson, not so much. But what she lacked in sex and booze she made up for in death and headaches. So that’s something.)
Even Shakespeare, whose work I couldn’t fully appreciate until I was well into my twenties, was a worthy experience, because it taught me how important it is to not just write a story, but to perform it with words.
So OK, maybe MOBY DICK blows. Personally, I agree with you there. But you can learn something from it regardless.
Like, for instance, the importance of trying new things, even if they turn out to be not for you.