The Only Way To Write Is To Write

The only way to write is to write.

Stephen King purportedly was once asked what the secret was to his success. He answered back rather cryptically, "B.I.C." The inquisitive audience pressed for more detail. "Butt.In.Chair."

The only way to write, and to write well, is to practice. Practice writing. Write a lot. Write anything. Write everything! Write outside your preferred style, genre, or location. Write often, and give yourself permission to write utter garbage just to clear out your mind for the good stuff. I took on this writing challenge, setting myself a goal to write for every day. I am not putting a word count, a story limit, or any other restriction on myself, other than to simply sit and ACTUALLY write. Write about my life, write about my characters, write a poem about salad, if it inspires. But to actually write.

The other goal is to read, and with a critical eye. What works? What draws me as a reader into the story? Do I read the chapter headings? What hooks me in to keep turning the pages, and not turn on a mindless DVD instead? How is the author using the voice of the characters to show and not simply tell the story? What turn of phrase gets me? What parts do I have to re-read in order to understand and why? Is it because I want to glean more meaning, or simply because the author was unclear? How could it be changed to add clarity? What descriptions leave me with a high-def picture in my head so tangible that I can taste the meal, see the glow on the burnished wood, and smell the fuel used on the torches casting such a flickering light?

I admit, reading the work of the amazing writers, of which I hold George R.R. Martin in highest esteem, this is difficult for me because I fall so deeply into the writing that my critical brain shuts off, and I lose myself in the story entirely. But it's precisely that complete absorption, that compelling need to finish just ONE more chapter, that whole being experience that I want my own readers to experience. So in studying a master who invokes such a reaction in ME is definitely worth dissecting and emulating.

I have said repeatedly that I've forgotten more about my book than I've ever gotten down onto paper. (Or into computer, as modern life takes over....) These characters have lived inside the boundaries of my imagination for pushing two decades. When I am truly tuned into my writing, they live, and I am a mere observer to their story.

A long time back, I set a rule for myself that I wouldn't write "boring." If I wasn't interested in writing it, then readers wouldn't be interested in reading it. Unfortunately, this left chronological storylines in shambles, but a lot of great ideas and some rather decent writing came out of this approach. Re-reading some of that work, I am in awe that it came from my pen, my brain, my character's lives. (Though sometimes equally I grimace at the amount of re-writing and editing that needs to be done. For example, it is far different writing a love scene as a 15-year old virgin than a married 36 year old woman....)

But why I am driven to even write at all remains somewhat of a mystery. I am not documenting important matters, crimes against the human race, the future of women's liberation, or the positions of proponents of animal rights.

For me, reading has always been a release. A place for my overactive mind to find a respite, a realm where all the daily struggles, heartaches and pains somehow fade, if temporarily, and for me to live vicariously through the lives of other people in other places who don't fret over the grocery budget, the property taxes going up, or the odd noise coming from the fan in the refrigerator. And isn't that precisely the power of storytelling? To take a reader from the mundane to the extraordinary through the lines of your pen, or the strokes of your keyboard.

However, there is only one way to accomplish all these high and lofty aspirations.

As Stephen King so eloquently and simply stated, "Butt.In.Chair."

HAPPY WRITING!