Comments on: Make it the best book you can

By: a post every writer should read « Heather S. Ingemar, Gothic Fiction Author

a post every writer should read « Heather S. Ingemar, Gothic Fiction Author — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 03:02:10 +0000

[...] March 21, 2009 http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/03/17/make-it-the-best-book-you-can/ [...]

By: Heather S. Ingemar

Heather S. Ingemar — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 17:43:23 +0000

BRAVO!

I think this is a post EVERY writer needs to read.

Best,
Heather

By: Joey-la

Joey-la — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:02:41 +0000

If you tell all your writer friends that, they will never worry about sales and reviews again!
By the way, I think the liar book sounds amazing, so I think it will do well in the real world too!

By: DavidT

DavidT — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:22:18 +0000

To the extent that you’re commenting on the angst of whether or not you are/are still a writer (as opposed to the other argument, of whether or not you need to suffer in your life to have fuel with which to create art), I think the best way to answer the questions you mention (such as ‘if my next book isn’t as good as my last, am I still a writer?’) is to stop and ask them about someone else. Is (for example) Stephen King still a writer if his latest book is not as good as ‘Christine’? Clearly, yes. Why should the answer you give about yourself be any more negative than the answer you give about someone else?

By: Sonya M. Sipes

Sonya M. Sipes — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 02:11:04 +0000

Happy = Good Writing
I totally agree! I find that my lighter stories fill me with satisfaction much more fully, and that my heavy/dark fiction weighs on me as heavily as it does on my characters. I wonder what that will mean to the reader? Which story will they find more memorable? The one that I smiled through? Or the one that weighed me down?

Great post, thanks for sharing your point of view.

By: Karen Mahoney

Karen Mahoney — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:29:13 +0000

I know I’m late in saying ‘thanks’ but I’ve read this post several times and am SO grateful for the words I need to hear right now. Thank you. My book is on submission with my fabulous agent right now, but it’s a process that feels agonisingly slow… I keep forgetting to focus on the next project – on the things I *can* control – and instead obsess over my email inbox.

Cheers! (I’ve linked to this on my blog.)

By: Mary Elizabeth S.

Mary Elizabeth S. — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 04:36:47 +0000

I have the opposite problem. When my writing isn’t going well and my self-esteem is lagging, I start to wonder in the back of my mind if success (success being defined as a written story that I am happy with) is dependant upon having a good time writing. People talk about how their best writing is done “in the zone” and how when they have it right they just fly along. And when I’m not flying along in the zone, I start to get scared that it means I’m a bad writer and my story is coming out all wrong and will never work right. It’s at those times when I wish I *did* believe that suffering made writing better, because it would mean that the more I struggled with the story the better it would come out. Which is, I know, just as silly as thinking the other way around. But I’ve always been a little odd, and I never promised reasonableness, anyway.

~Mary

By: Melinda

Melinda — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:18:13 +0000

What fantastic advice, although its easier to be rational on a good day…

And I figured out a long time ago that i don’t have to be a tortured soul to write, but getting involved with the publishing world can be akin to torture at times .

By: Samira Hodges

Samira Hodges — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:32:03 +0000

What a great post. And well-timed too. I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for writing it so beautifully.

By: J

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:16:48 +0000

I agree. many people ask, “am i a writer?” I always think of it as this. it you write, your a writer. your writing can be horrible, but you are still a writer. If you yourself feel happy with your book, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks. Satisfaction is the key.

By: Diana Peterfreund

Diana Peterfreund — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:35:01 +0000

I think there are two different issues at play here.

The first one, which I absolutely agree with (even if I find it difficult to put into practice) is “Protect the Work.” The only thing we can control is the book. head down, nose to grindstone, shoulder to wheel, damn the torpedoes, all those truisms.

The other issue is the myth of the tortured writer. I admit I’ve never been a fan of that one. I don’t care much for being tortured, and writing had always been something that makes me happy. Right now, however, I’m finding it’s the other things in my life that are making me happy: my husband, my new house, my puppy, my friends. I am intermittently having problems finding the joy in writing. February and the secret project was a good month, and I’m sure once I get past this issue I’m having with the current WIP, it will be full speed ahead. but write now, man. It’s the whole “stare at a blank page until droplets of blood form” stage, and it’s hard to keep the doubt demons away and “protect the work” when you are wondering whether the work is worthy of protecting.

By: Lauren McLaughlin

Lauren McLaughlin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:44:13 +0000

Thanks, Justine. Just… thanks.

By: liliya

liliya — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:19:11 +0000

John Cash – that’s a slightly different point though, isn’t it? Yes, great artists can use the bad times they’ve been through to enrich their creative work, but those bad times weren’t caused by their work. I’m pretty sure Solzhenytsyn didnt’ seek out the gulag in order to become a great writer. and I always thought the main contribution prison made to Dostoyevsky’s work was to give him time to write, free of the usual round of debts and gambling…))

By: AliceB

AliceB — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:39:09 +0000

Thank you. Needed that.

By: Justine

Justine — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:56:42 +0000

Lilya: You say ‘I have also discovered no correlation between how emotionally fraught it is for me to write a book and the book’s success.’ You mean commercial success here, right?

I mean both.

I’m interested – do you think there’s any correlation between how how good or successful you think the book is artistically, and how hard it was to write?

Not for me there isn’t. Maybe for some other writers.

By: john cash

john cash — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:37:30 +0000

I remember seeing the “suffering artist” myth pop up in the old cartoon “Beanie and Cecil.” (Anyone remember that one?) Cecil, a sea serpent, wants to become a beat artist, and his nemesis Dishonest John tells him great artists have to suffer, and proceeds to make him suffer in a variety of cartoon ways. Not recommended for real life.
And yet, people who have experienced suffering and can use it to put emotional power into their writing, singing, and painting can make phenomenal stuff. Without prison, would Dostoevsky or Solzehnitsyn be as powerful? Without addiction and life on the street, would William S. Burroughs or Tony O’Neill or Billie Holiday or Marianne Faithfull be as compelling? Without the death of her mother, would J.K. Rowling have succeeded in representing death so successfully in “Harry Potter”?
To counteract the “suffering artist” myth, we have to admit suffering’s role, in life and so in writing, but avoid glamourizing it as though without it you can’t ever be a cool artist, writer, or person.

By: anecdotes » Inspiration and work

anecdotes » Inspiration and work — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:11:17 +0000

[...] But I do agree with both Justine and Elizabeth Gilbert that the most important thing you can do as a writer is keep doing your work, or, as Justine says, make it the best book you can. [...]

By: liliya

liliya — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:07:31 +0000

this is a wonderful post. It’s hard letting go of the tortured artist mythos, especially since it seems to be EVERYWHERE (and I have to say I do think much of the internet writer’s blog thing – present company excepted! – is contributing to it) and it appears to be even harder not to get hung up on the whole publishing issue. So yes – write because you love it! or write because you hate it but it nevertheless feels like the most important thing you can do.

you say ‘I have also discovered no correlation between how emotionally fraught it is for me to write a book and the book’s success.’ You mean commercial success here, right? I’m interested – do you think there’s any correlation between how how good or successful you think the book is artistically, and how hard it was to write?

By: Q

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:53:22 +0000

All the questions at the beginning of this post made me want to tell the people who are asking these questions, “Are you writing? Then yes, you’re a writer.”

By: Eric Luper

Eric Luper — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:50:11 +0000

This is how I said it the other day: http://eluper.livejournal.com/108730.html

By: Sir Tessa

Sir Tessa — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:33:14 +0000

WORD, SISTAH.

By: Tricia Sullivan

Tricia Sullivan — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:20:27 +0000

Hmm. I thought all writers were crazy, but you are not acting crazy enough if you keep posting stuff like this.

I might actually print this one out and stick it up on the wall beside my desk. Thanks!

For more sanity, Kay Kenyon has wise words of a related bent. http://kenyonsf.livejournal.com/33348.html