Week 6 Lab: Advice to Writers
(Image by Ramdlon
For this week, I chose to do a story lab! These assignments allow me to explore new ways to improve my writing! This week I focused on the Advice to Writers assignment. I will touch upon three of my favorite pieces of advice, which are included down below. I personally struggle with thinking of new ideas, rereading my work, and revising. After I complete something, it is hard for me to think of new ideas to add to my story. What I learned from these writers was that it takes time. You cannot force writing, be patient, and keep practicing. Once I accept these things, I hope it will take away the pressure I feel when I write. So, I plan on jotting down my thoughts whenever I have an idea. I think my thoughts and ideas will help me when I am writing a story in the future. I also plan on just reading more! Due to my current course load, I already have much to read. When I have time, I wish to read novels that I actually enjoy! With the advice I learned, I hope to make a change in the way I perceive writing.
ADVICE TO WRITERS
"Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? “If it ain't broke...”.
- Zade Smith
"My approach to teaching writing is to teach reading -- how to read a text and how to read one's own text, from the point of view of an artist, to really try to take apart what happens, sentence by sentence by sentence, you just need to read very carefully, and with a different kind of hat on."
- Chang-Rae Lee
"You learn to write through practice, through writing, over and over, again and again. All those legions of apprentice writers out there would, I’m sure, wish it were different—how much easier simply to express your innate genius in finished form without having to bother with all that odious work. And all that reading. And the endless rewrites."
- T.C. Boyle
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