Hi, it’s me again with another entry. Let’s go.
Today I feel like giving some motivational speech. Only it’s not speech at all, but text, so you can’t hear my voice or the powerful way I pronounce syllables. You’re on your own, try to imagine the best voice you can think of (Steve Buscemi, people, try to think of Steve Buscemi, he has the voice and the eye of motivational speaker). Anyway, motivation. Yes, today I’m writing about motivation.
I don’t know why, or how it happened. I just felt that I have to spread the word. We’re living in daring times, and I don’t know about you, but I would’ve preferred if we were to live in a less interesting time. But since it’s not up to us to choose the epoch we want to exist at, we have to deal with whatever we have at our disposal.
The message is directed at writers. Those who are writing, those who are should be writing, and those who are still waiting for a sign to write. If you’re reading this, I am your sign. Just do it, don’t wait, there will be never a perfect moment to start. You’ll never be ready. The world would never wait for you. AI most likely will write novels better than we could ever dream of in a year or two. You just have to do it right now and let whatever happens happen.
I am in this game for a year and a half, and I achieved jack shit. I’m still working on my daily job, my friends still refuse to read my novels even if I’m giving them away for free (I am actually not), and in general nothing of what correlates with the word success happened. And yet I’m still doing it. I’m still writing despite all the signals indicating that probably I should just go and do something more productive with my life. Like masturbate or watch TikTok.
Okay, now let’s be serious for a moment. Year and a half is nothing. It’s not even something one should care about if writing is what he really wants to do. Yes, in the modern climate where you have to get instant success, where you published your epic novel and the very next morning you’re already a NY Best-Selling Author it is a lot of time, and probably you should go and do something else with your life. But is it? I mean, in the world of writing, it’s not unheard of for authors remaining unknown for ten years, twenty years, thirty years, their entire lives, and even then there are no guarantees. You feel me? There are no guarantees at all.
John Fante, the author of Arturo fucking Bandini, was unknown till he was dying of diabetes in his late sixties (or maybe seventies, sorry, I didn’t check). He got massively recognized already after he was long gone. Doesn’t sound very motivating? Not a story most of us want to hear? Obviously, since the majority believes, they are going to be next whoever is hot right now.
But let’s forget about fame, forget about money, forget about the reader, for a moment. The only thing is left, and the only that is truly important, is you and your idea. Does it make it hard to sleep? Do you keep returning to it day and night? Do you keep thinking of new ways to expand on it? Does it make you excited from the thought alone that it is there? If you do, then there’s really no choice but to write. And I tell you, you have to. You just have to do it.
Again, forget everything I said about going ballistic, and banging your head over the concrete wall, writing novel after novel out of pure spite, as if it’s your own vendetta printed on those pages. Forget about all that crap. What is important is that idea, and your determination to do it.
Don’t think of epic series, of sequels, prequels, and somehow they return-quels. Don’t think about rich vocabulary, about style, about grammar, about anything and everything self-help writing books tend to say. Forget about being good author, average author, bad author, or epic author. Just focus on the idea and your vision.
Once that is clear, you just have to sit and write. That’s all. It’s that simple, yet very hard, because life is a nasty thing, and there will always be distractions. There will always be not enough time, reasons not to.
The worst reason I heard so far is that some critic said that we have enough good novels, so people might stop to write because no matter what they’ll write it’s going to be garbage. Seriously? I don’t know who they were talking about and if you know what pretentious asshole said that, don’t be afraid to write his name in the comments down below. I mean, so fucking what? Some dude said some shit. It’s not the first time some dude says some shit. Man, in Ancient Greece, they couldn’t stop bitching about new authors appearing on the horizon. There will always be this one motherfucker who can’t stop bitching.
But despite all those reasons, you just have to. Not recording videos on YouTube or writing in your blog about how you started working on your novel at last (I can do it because I’m autistic enough to know I’ll finish it just because otherwise I’m going to really-really-really be upset about myself), not moaning about writer’s block, about how you came up with title, or how many chapters there’s going to be, and definitely not walk around telling everyone that you finally started writing your novel. There’s no better way to kill it off before it even started by telling everyone who’s there to hear. So, just shut up and write.
I know it’s hard to be silent about what you’re doing. Especially now, in our time when we’re in dire need of a dopamine spike. Where we want to be rewarded for something difficult, but that’s exactly the reason why you have to do it. To prove to yourself that you can do it.
So, you just have to sit, and write, and don’t give a fuck about anything. Your main goal is to pour out everything you want to say on the paper or the screen or wherever you’re writing. Your goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, with as little hiccups, obstacles, or attempts to smooth the edges. No time, you’ll do it later, or maybe don’t because it’ll be perfect on the first try (unlikely, but what the hell).
And yes, I’ll be fanboying again, but Stephen King said that if the novel takes you more than three months to do the first draft, chances are it won’t see the light of publication. Well, in my case he was wrong once, because I wrote my third novel around five months, but only because I just said fuck it and wrote 500-1,000 words per day just for the sake of it. But there’s a truth to his statement. First of all, the man knows what he’s talking about, he was writing longer than I was alive. Second of all, if you don’t know yourself yet (and chances are if you’re writing your first few novels you really don’t) the risk is real. So, the longer you keep your novel on work in progress, the higher the chance that it’ll die out, eventually.
You have no luxury of time, so your best bet is just to write it as fast as possible. After all, you can always fix it later. Or don’t. I don’t know, it’s a hard topic regarding rewriting and introducing changes. What I know for sure is that you either write it or it’ll just be your idea that will never be released into the wild. And how can you know that this idea wasn’t the so needed thing? You should try it.
The worst thing that might happen is that no one will ever notice you wrote something. Or maybe you’ll be the next internet meme, which isn’t always the bad thing as long as you cool with it yourself. Thank you for reading and see you tomorrow. Bye!