This post is likely to be a minority view. It certainly goes against a lot of conventional wisdom. But it’s a viewpoint, maybe worthy of consideration, maybe not. Your mileage may etc etc.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how other writers go through the process of putting words onto paper (both virtual and actual). Some of it is about how they write, what they listen to, their favorite chair. Other parts are about how they either plan to or already market their work. The rest of the time, though, it’s all about The Rest of It. The publishing aspect. Critiques. Discussions. Edits. The birth process from Unpublished to Published. The messy, bloody, screaming struggle to bring something into the world that fills you with joy and wonder, and eventually, the panicky thought what the fuck do I do now?

I want to talk about that part.

I’ve met a lot of writers lately, and they all seem to fall into two camps. The first camp writes something, titles it, and publishes it. It’s not very good, generally. It’s full of typos and bizarre shit and could have used a second pair of eyes, or at least a finger on a mouse that can find the Recycle Bin (and if you use a Mac and don’t get the reference, eventually you’ll lose the training wheels and get a real computer. Ha! Kidding. A bit. Apple rant for another day.). These people will never be reached or changed, but they will write a freakish amount of stuff in a short period of time (and it’s generally freakish in both quantity and content). They are Camp A.

Camp B is the exact opposite. These are the people that carefully cultivate an online “platform” before they finish writing their story. Everything they write goes to at least 3 critique partners as they go. Rewriting is constantly going on, even as they are trying to finish the story. Maybe, eventually, hopefully, they manage to finish their story. Then it goes to Committee, or a writer’s group. Discussion ensues. More changes and rewrites, which are then sent back to the critique partners before filtering back to the group. Finally, a story emerges, that then goes to an editor. The editor then gives their subjective opinion. Rewrites, rinse, wash, repeat. This kind of thing can go on for years. YEARS.

Why? The quest for perfection, of course. The writer dreads exposing something where a single sentence is unclear, the pacing off just a bit, a description not perfect enough, a chapter with too many words in it, a chapter with not enough words in it. Any flaw or blemish is unacceptable. The stigma of self-publishing is so great that tremendous effort and hurdles must be overcome to avoid falling into the smelly underbelly of shitty work.

My answer to Camp B is this: get the fuck over yourself, and publish your fucking thinly-veiled My Little Pony fanfic already.

OK, that came out a little harsh, but the sentiment is pretty accurate. Eventually, you need to publish your novel, so you can move the fuck on to something else already. I’ve met people who have been working on their first book for 3 or 5 or 7 years. Fucking years. They’ve gone through a dozen or more edits. They’ve had ten different people giving advice and guidance and criticism and it’s still taking them 10 fucking years to publish something.

Writers get better by writing. They do NOT get better rewriting or editing. It’s a fact that I made up, and it’s still fucking true. Eventually, running around the fucking rabbit hole and rewriting and editing and rewriting and editing and rewriting becomes the game in and of itself. The pursuit for perfection becomes relentless, so that when that “perfect” gem – which will never be perfect – hits the bookshelves, virtual or otherwise, it will get snapped up and lauded and praised and entire island nations will give themselves over to the worship of the person who could bring such a wonderful novel about zombie gardeners into being.

Yeah, see, that’s not gonna fucking happen. Sorry.

Your book will hit, and it will sell, a few or some. Congratulations. But the sales won’t be huge, most likely. Because a lot of people in the world have written a single book, published it, and never did another. Why? They’re in Camp B, and that process is so fucking miserable they can’t bear to go through it again, especially when their book didn’t sell a shitload of copies. So it’s hard to stand out to a potential reader when you’ve got just one book to your name. Readers like seeing people who have a lot of books. Steve King didn’t become Stephen King because he published a polished gem of a first novel. He became Stephen Fucking King because he wrote like a crazed motherfucking banshee, cranking out short stories and books because he didn’t know what else to do with the gibbering voices in his head.

So, herewith comes my shitty advice:

Trust your instincts.

You and I are on my deck. I’m smoking a cigarette (it’s a clove, and yes, apparently I’m a gothy teenager with angst issues) and I have a drink. It’s later in the evening, the rest of the party is inside, we’ve had a few drinks and are feelin’ fine. I ask you to tell me a story. You can either a) tell me a fucking story, or b) go back inside, consult with friends about which story you should tell, whether you should add the aside or the part about the uncle, try it out on them, tweak it, then finally come back and tell me their story. I didn’t ask for their fucking story. I asked for YOUR story. If you’re a fucking storyteller – and if you’re a writer, you’d better be a fucking storyteller – then you know how to tell one. You know what’s necessary, what’s funny even if it isn’t necessary, who the interesting people are, and all the rest.

Those are your instincts working. Trust them, because they’re the main thing you’ve got. If someone tells you to cut something from your novel – and of course they’ll make sure to add, “sometimes you need to kill what you love” just to add an extra dash of Worm of Doubt – and it screams out NO and you feel horrible about the idea, consider this: you don’t have to listen to them. It’s YOUR story. Not theirs. Think it over. Mull it in your head. Then decide if you want to follow their suggestion or not. It is ALWAYS your choice.

Editing is subjective.

Editing is also necessary, important, fruitful, and painful. But that second or third or fucking nineteenth set of eyes is absolutely subjective. If editing was completely objective, then someone would have written a fucking app for it. Run your document through, and all the Wrong Things would pop out. But people ain’t like that. Every editor has their own prejudices, things they love, things they hate. If I find out my editor loves Hemingway, I turn and run the fuck the other way, because I’ve never met an adjective I didn’t like and not every fucking sentence in the world needs to be five words long. So it’s important to keep in mind that your editor isn’t always right. Reject the feedback they give you that turns your story into their story. And if they bitch and refuse to do any more editing unless you change it, walk the fuck away. If an editor thinks they’re such hot shit and always right, let them become the fucking best-selling novelist instead of trying to choke the life out of everything else they come across.

Master your fear.

I know. I feel it too. You’re not good enough. Your pacing sucks. Your characters are all right out of Manimal. No one would want to read this. In fact, smother yourself with this handy pillow and save everyone else the misery of your wretched feeble prose. I get it. I hear you. You’re scared. Scared people won’t like it (there are some that won’t). Scared people won’t read it (90% of the earth’s population won’t). Scared people will think you can’t write for shit (it’ll happen). Scared of putting yourself out there, exposed to ridicule, vulnerable and shaking and alone and oh god everyone’s pointing and laughing and I forgot my shoes and pants and where is my locker and when was the last time I was in class and why is my tooth loose? I get the fear. I know it intimately. So I will say this gently, and with love, and I’ll gently squeeze your hand as I say it, for comfort.

Get the fuck over it.

Seriously. Get over the fear, because if you can’t, you won’t succeed. You need confidence. You need to be able to put something out there that you are proud of (and that doesn’t necessarily mean ten years of 15 rewritings and edits, either – that’s just hiding behind your fear long enough to feel like, if it doesn’t work, at least you’ve got your partners and groups and editors to blame). And you need to do it again. And again. And again. If you want to succeed as a writer, you have to write, and not be afraid. It’s ok to be scared sometimes, but for fuck’s sake, you were born with a voice and perspective that no other motherfucker on earth has ever had and is ever going to have again, so fucking USE IT. Let people love it and hate it and ignore it. That’s what people are going to do. But your perspective will be there for all time, or at least until the meteor hits. Don’t let fear kill you before you’ve even given yourself a chance.

Keep writing.

Finally, the most important thing of all. That first book you’ve been toiling over, slaving over, working and reworking ad infinitum et nauseum? It’s just the first brick in the wall you need to build. Sure, it’s great that the first brick is brightly polished and Bedazzled and all that shit, but it’s still just one brick. You want to be a writer for a living? Then WRITE, MOTHERFUCKER. Put out a dozen novels, all with a measure of quality (but they’ll never be perfect, remember?), and you’ll probably be considered a writer. But in order to do that, you can’t get bogged down in the shitty details. You can’t let doubt overcome you. You need to write, because nothing else matters. The more you write, the better you will be. REMEMBER THAT.

That first book you write, the one you slave over and worry over and fret about and can’t sleep because of – guess what? In ten years, you’re going to look back at it and wonder just what the fuck the big deal was. Hopefully by then, you’ve got 5 or 6 or 10 new novels. Each will be better than the last. Because it’s the only way to find your voice, to polish it, and make it fucking SING.

So, last time. I’ve just lit this here cigarette. I have a drink of some sort, probably made heavily with rum. It’s a nice evening, the breeze is rustling the leaves, I’m buzzing nicely. The rest of the party is inside, and it’s just you and me. Tell me a story.

Tell me YOUR story.