James Scott Bell – Deborah Makarios

January 5, 2018January 29, 2018

Helpful Books for Writers

Being a passionate reader as well as a writer, I have inhaled a large number of books about writing over the last (cough) years.

Here are ten I have found particularly helpful – though it’s worth remembering that your process may be different and therefore Your Mileage May Vary.

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande
This book isn’t about writing per se; it’s about being a writer, a person who writes – and how to not be a person who wants to write but doesn’t. It’s not by any means a new book, but in my opinion it is darned good stuff. It’s encouraging, it’s practical, and it’s one of the books which frequently appear in the pile under my bedside table.

Save the Cat by Blake Snyder
Technically a screenwriting book, it is worth reading if only for the wit and enjoyment. Though fiction writing can be looser in structure than screenwriting, a lot of the lessons carry across (the Pope in the Pool is my personal favourite).

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks
If you feel you are lost in a swampy thicket of “I don’t even know where I am or what I’m doing here or what this book even is” then this is the book for you. I was first drawn to it by the structural aspects, but got a healthy dose of all the other essential elements of a successful book.

Plot versus Character by Jeff Gerke
How to plot for character-driven writers and how to character for plot-driven writers. A painless extraction. I feel it improved both my project in hand and myself as a writer in general.

Please Understand Me II – David Keirsey
A handy tool for when you’re mulling over your characters, considering each type’s values and how they function as leader, spouse, parent or child. I don’t advocate using it as a tool for creating your characters out of whole cloth, but it can help you fill out the dimmer corners.

The Irresistible Novel by Jeff Gerke
You will never come to the end of people telling you how every last detail of your writing should be done: rules, rules, rules. Jeff Gerke cuts through all that by pointing out that the only must is that you must keep your reader’s interest. And then he lays out a whole range of choices you need to make and gives you the information needed to make those decisions yourself.

Revision and Self-Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell
You get to the end of your epic first draft. You celebrate. You take some time off to let it settle, maybe work on something else for a bit. And then you come back and you look at that massive indigestible mass of paper. And what do you do then? You make yourself a cup of tea and you settle down with this book, is what.

Let’s Get Digital by David Gaughran
Basically the best book on self-publishing I’ve read to date. Currently in its third edition, but the first edition (2011) is freely available for download from his website if you want to get a feel for it (it’s under a CC-BY-NC-ND license). Mostly about ebooks (hence the title) but with a helpful section on print-on-demand as well.

How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn
What I like most about this book is that it doesn’t make you feel guilty for not being the world’s top salesperson. She lays out the many and various options for marketing your book and then lets you decide what will work best for you.

Rise of the Machines by Kristen Lamb
The how and why of blogging and other social media for authors. I haven’t necessarily implemented everything in her book, but it’s encouraging stuff and makes it all seem possible.

So there are my recommendations – what are yours?

January 20, 2016

Resolution: Procrastination

“On New Year’s Day I made a resolution to procrastinate more, starting in February.”
from Revision and Self-Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell

August 14, 2015

How to Beat Procrastination II

Motivation!
Yes, I know I said that habit was the secret to beating procrastination, and it is. But you’ve got to get that habit started.

As Jim Ryun put it, “motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” You need motivation just to get you out of bed in the morning.

Motivation is something I struggle with, especially when it comes to getting out of bed in the morning. It’s an issue I had been mulling over for some time when I read Revision and Self-Editing for Publication by James Scott Bell, in which he suggests that writers should have a mission statement which they keep someplace visible in order to inspire them.

What exactly this mission statement should contain, however, was left a little vague: “hopes and dreams” were mentioned. So I looked into what others have said about mission statements. The common strands seemed to be about who you are, what you do, who for, why, and where you’re going with it.

Richard Branson says “If you are in a situation where you must write a mission statement, I think you should try for something closer to a heraldic motto than a speech. They were often simple because they had to fit across the bottom of a coat of arms, and they were long-lasting because they reflected a group’s deeper values.”

That seemed like a good definition: a simple motto which reflects your deeper values.

So I started by answering all the questions-starting-with-W that I could. I freely admit I struggled with the ones asking me what the future held, because I am not psychic and I really have no idea. My life to date has not accustomed me to assume that next year will be in any way like this year. (It often is, but it always comes as a surprise.)

In the end, it boiled down to these words: truth. hope. take heart.

There are some writers who hold that happy endings are lies, and that it is morally irresponsible to suggest otherwise. I disagree. I believe that good will ultimately overcome evil. That truth gives me hope; and to withhold that hope from others would be both morally irresponsible and utterly selfish.

If all this seems a bit too metaphysical to you, consider it this way: my aim is to write works (novels, plays, what have you) that are like a cup of tea. Sitting down for a cup of tea is both a rest, and a restoration; it eases your weariness and it prepares you to face the world again.

I want to write works which people will read and re-read; not necessarily because of what the story says, but because it gives them the courage to keep going, and change things.

Truth → hope → take heart.

I will of course put this somewhere I’ll see it often – but there’s no harm in having a cup of tea on my desk to remind me as well.