Serving your writers’ apprenticeship: just do it

Novelist Tess Gerritsen has a great post “Writers and desperation”. Words of wisdom:

So why do they think that they can write a publishable novel their first time out, without bothering to first learn the craft?

Chances are your first novel won’t be publishable. Perhaps your next few novels won’t be publishable either. However, every word you write helps you as a writer, and if you continue to write, and to learn, you will be published. Believe me, it’s inevitable. If you will write, and learn, you WILL be published.

It takes commitment
I was 30 when I decided that I’d better get moving if I wanted to publish a novel, so I gave myself until age 40 to do it. It took a year before I sold not just one novel, but a series.

I spent that year writing a novel proposal (three chapters and an outline) a month. I was on proposal number ten when an editor passed one of my proposals to another editor, and she asked me to write a proposal for a contemporary novel. (I was submitting historical novel proposals). That proposal was accepted.

Before I started my novel-proposal campaign I’d written a couple of complete novels that I didn’t bother sending anywhere. They were disjointed junk, BUT they taught me about writing a novel.

So here’s what it took to write ten proposals – around 20,000 words a month. In total, around 200,000 words, or a couple of books. None of those proposals sold, when we moved house, I recycled them all.

No one can force you to write, but if your attitude is “whatever it takes,” you’ll achieve your goals.

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