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Underground > Creation >

Johnny's gonna write a book

Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero

20:17 / 16.09.01

No, really! I couldn't get the thought of writing a book out of my head for about a week, so I've decided to go ahead and give it a try, even though I've never before been interested in writing a novel of any kind. So for the past few days, I've been writing at least half an hour every day. I'm finding this to be as difficult as I imagined it to be. What advice can any here offer me? Keep in mind my inexperience in writing anything longer than a short story. Thanks.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:17 / 17.09.01

Hunter Thompson advises drugs and alcohol.

Some writers require sex.

Some saturate themselves, burst explosively onto the page. Others plan, agonise, and then trickle.

I like music. Others insist on silence. One of my friends writes in cafes, another on trains, another in his sitting room.

Don't stare at the page. If you can't write, read it from the beginning. Trust your talent. Keep going and you will be amazed by how it piles up. Try to squeeze a little extra time from the day...

Good luck.

09:17 / 17.09.01

What Nick said... And if you hit a dead end in the plot, go back to the beginning of the chapter and take a different path.

What's your basic plot outline, if you don't mind me asking?

Whisky Priestess

10:00 / 17.09.01

Give yourself a word limit/target per day or week and make sure you hit it. A time limit is useful but you may get nothing done in teh half-hour - or you may just be getting started and want to go on. It's a question of discipline. Reward yourself at milestone lengths: 10,000 words, first chapter, 10th chapter, halfway through, whatever fits.

Also it helps to have a fairly detailed (2-3 page) plot outline before you start. You don;t have to stick to it by any means - go with the flow - but it'll give you ideas when you're stuck if you know where you're going. It also gives you the freedom to write different bits at different times and work out difficulties/blocks that way. Reread whatever you wrote the day before to edit it and take inspiration from it. And get absolutely blitzed when you finish, then put it in a drawer for at least a month, reread and cut.

11:55 / 17.09.01

The writing is easy: once you've got the hang of it, you can do a Kerouacian spill ("That's not writing, it's typing," sniffs Truman Capote) and churn out a thousand pages.

But that's only 10% of the work.

It's the re-writing, the cutting, the shaping and the editing that's horrifying. That's what separates the writers from the wannabees.

And that's the other 90%.

Good luck. Rock out with yer cock out.

12:57 / 17.09.01

One of the best bits of advice I heard lately was in a Creative Screenwriting magazine interview - when you stop for the day, never leave the scene finished. That way, you'll have the gumption to start righting the next day, just to complete that scene... and you get inertia, roll onward.

Charles Bukowski recommends beer.

12:58 / 17.09.01

quote:how to be a great writer

you've got to fuck a great many women
beautiful women
and write a few decent love poems.
and don't worry about age
and/or freshly-arrived talents.

just drink more beer
more and more beer

and attend the racetrack at least once a week

and win
if possible

learning to win is hard -
any slob can be a good loser.

and don't forget your Brahms
and your Bach and your
beer.

don't overexercise.

sleep until moon.

avoid paying credit cards
or paying for anything on
time.

remember that there isn't a piece of ass
in this world over $50
(in 1977).

and if you have the ability to love
love yourself first
but always be aware of the possibility of
total defeat
whether the reason for that defeat
seems right or wrong -

an early taste of death is not necessarily
a bad thing.

stay out of churches and bars and museums,
and like the spider be
patient -
time is everybody's cross,
plus
exile
defeat
treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.

beer is continuous blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large typewriter
and as the footsteps go up and down
outside your window

hit that thing
hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in

and remember the old dogs
who fought so well:
Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.

If you think they didn't go crazy
in tiny rooms
just like you're doing now

without women
without food
without hope

then you're not ready.

drink more beer.
there's time.
and if there's not
that's all right
too.