photo © Michael Jastremski

There will be a page on this site linking to books and people whose writing advice made big changes to how I work. Despite the fact that one of the only things I’ve learned so far is that whatever works for me, that’s how to write. There’s nothing more to it. I’m not going to find a list somewhere, written by someone else, that tells me how to do it.

What works for me is that I’m allowed to do whatever it takes to get the work done – for me, word counts don’t work, deadlines don’t either, and imagining being judged will freeze me totally. Jealousy, fear and competitiveness don’t drive me either. Constant reminders that I love what I do – that works.

Treating writing as fun makes me seek out time to spend with my manuscript. Being allowed to do whatever draws me that day – whether it’s writing a scene further along, skipping around the story, or editing instead of composing, or outlining instead of editing – I love all parts of the process, when I get to choose, and so I don’t give myself rules that I must only do, say, X job for 10 weeks and then swap. Because every time I do that I rebel, and I stop turning up. The pens gather dust. Writing feels like ‘work’, and my subconscious hates that word. Sorry to be corny and self referential, but writing is lovely – remembering the joys of that is what gets me back in that chair day after day. And, yes, what named this site

But. But. Before I knew that, when I’d just started trying to write seriously, I found all these blogs by writers and thought if I read them enough I could glean that secret way, that magic list telling me how to keep going until my novel was finished. And good. I freaked myself out a lot, compared myself to others too much and wondered if I was wrong not to be as organised, or as depressed, as energetic or as anti-social, as other people were. As Real Writers were.

And then my friend lent me ‘BlackBringer’ by Laini Taylor (which is deliciously good – I adore it!) and I found out that she had a blog, Not for Robots, about what works for her and – ta-da! – loads of it worked for me, too! That silly document I had where I made notes and lists and talked to myself about the other, ‘real’ document where the pretty words were – instead of berating myself for messing around and not doing Real Writing, I now call it my Working Doc, like Laini. Rather than resent that fact that a lot of what I find and decide about the story will be chucked out, changed or never included – I now see it as a useful, exploratory swathe through the trees of what might be a novel, my machetes cutting a plot through the big, unmapped jungle of my story. And when I figure out a problem, or find a detail that I know in my gut is just right, I agree that ‘snick‘ is exactly the right word.

Have a look at her site. Click any of the links or that great cartoon up there (her husband drew it!). Maybe all you’ll find is a reminder that however you work, that’s right. You’re a writer whether you outline, or fast draft, write short stories or epic trilogies, write 17 drafts or three. That alone is valuable stuff. But what you will also find are sage, positive, practical accounts of what works for her and might also work for you. Have a read! Try it out. And then go buy all her books. They rule. You’ll wish you had crows for best friends, too.