I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.
This week's word is ONE.
Earlier this week there was a piece published in the online magazine LitHub by author Jonathan Franzen:
It wasn't a very helpful list, to be honest.
Some of the "rules" sounded more like fortune-cookie proverbs: "You see more sitting still than chasing after."
Some were vague: "Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting." Uh ... ok ... would you like to proffer, bestow, or furnish some examples, Jonathan?
And some were just head-scratchers: "It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction." First of all, what if you have a job as an accountant and then come home and work on your novel: how does having WiFi at work make you a poor fiction writer? (Why not just say, "Stop surfing the net when you're supposed to be writing your novel," if that's what you mean?) Also -- "his workplace"? What is this, 1950? Or does this rule only apply to male writers?
I just have One Rule For Writing, and it's an adaptation of a quote attributed to Mother Teresa talking about prayer:
WRITE AS YOU CAN,
NOT AS YOU CAN'T.
I don't mean "You're as good a writer as you're ever going to be, so just churn out whatever comes easiest and don't challenge yourself."
What I mean is, find the time, place, style, tone, voice, genre, or structure of writing that works for you. If you can't get up at 5 a.m. to write for two hours, don't. If it isn't possible for you to write every day, don't worry about it. If your style is earnest and thoughtful, don't try to write light, quirky material just to cater to popular audiences.
And the paradox is: as you focus on writing "as you can" -- finding your unique style and gift -- one day you'll look back and see that you are writing more and better than you ever thought you could.
Yeah...those comments from that article don't seem very helpful at all. But I love your one rule. Perfect!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tara. It was such a lousy article. I am all for taking good advice from accomplished writers, but this sounds like something he dashed off with little thought. We put more effort into our FMF posts!
DeleteI love your commentary after certain rules on the list. It made me laugh. :) I write free verse poetry. That is one thing I know how to do well. I've tried doing haiku & way outside poetry with a short story, but both require serious focus when free verse let's me speak my heart. Thanks for sharing this. Visiting from fmf, we're neighbors :)
ReplyDeleteThat's so great that you've found your niche as a writer. It's a good feeling when we are truly being ourselves as we write.
DeleteI think your one tip outweighs all ten of his, so I proffer, bestow and furnish this formula: 1>10.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tim! That's my kind of math!
DeleteThis is great, Jeannie! Those "helpful" suggestions Jonathan gave were really just hilarious material for you to poke through. I'm a firm believer in writing what you know in your own voice.
ReplyDeleteVisiting from #57 FMF this week.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
miccah
Hi Miccah, thanks for your comment! Up here in Canada we celebrated Thanksgiving 6 weeks ago 😀 but I hope you have a great holiday! Yeah, I felt bad for about 5 seconds that I was criticizing Franzen's article - but it just seemed so lame to me. When I am a world famous author I will try to give a better list of tips, ha ha.
DeleteExactly! Thanks for reading and commenting, Stephanie.
ReplyDelete