“Why are we doing this?” My crit partner looked back from the computer screen. She’s on spring holiday in Australia and we were Skyping to discuss plots, goals, and problems.
“I dunno,” I said, which was eloquent for that time of night. Being best friends with someone on the other side of the planet can be hard. “Didn’t we quit once?”
“Oh… yeah…. what happened?”
“It didn’t stick.”
A few minutes later I sent her a scene from what I was writing that day and we both giggled. This is why we didn’t quit.
“It’s a bit crude,” I said, “but very in character.”
“Very him,” my crit partner agreed.
He is a figment of my imagination, but he’s been around long enough for me to talk about him to my writing friends. An imaginary character with a distinct style of speaking and thinking. He doesn’t feel imaginary any more.
When had it become normal to discuss these characters like they were real people? I’m not sure. One day they slipped into my conversation at the dinner table, or over a Skype call, and here they have stayed. Stubborn to the last.
Stubbornness is a key ingredient to writing. You have to put your butt in the chair and write the words if you want to finish the book. It sounds easy, but as many hopeful authors have found there’s more to it than just sitting in the chair.
You have to know when it’s time to take a break. Learn how to write a scene even when you’re not in the mood. Understand the difference between a bad idea and a badly executed one. You have to have the experience.
That means you need to fail.
A lot.
You need to be comfortable writing ten thousand words and throwing it away a week later.
You need to be confident enough to cut a scene or drop a book that isn’t working.
You need to be able to read a rejection letter or a bad review and shrug it off because that book is finished and the next one needs a Chapter 5 by Friday.
You need to laugh at the typos your crit partner finds. This isn’t high school English. You aren’t getting graded on how perfectly written your G’s are. Typos and grammatical errors and even bad books happen. Let them. You’re learning from them.
Tomorrow I have a new book out. It seems like I finished it a lifetime ago. It always does.
There was magic in that book when I wrote, something that pulled me back and made me laugh with the characters. Made my heart break when they cried. Hopefully the magic will survive long enough for you to find it there, hidden between the curls of the letters.
Today I hope you find the magic in your own life. Something that pulls you forward, grabs your attention, makes you smile. After all, we all deserve a little magic.