Upon Learning the Splendid Craft of Writing by Jodi Lea Stewart

Beginning writers face many obstacles.

Recently, someone asked for advice in a writing group online. She wanted to write novels but said everything stays a draft because she feels too insecure to continue and doesn’t really know what she’s doing. 

Further, each time she writes something, it gets criticized, causing terrible self-doubt. She said she was afraid her dream of being a writer may remain a dream. She asked what she should do.

These are honest problems for beginners, and I would like to shed a little light from my own perspective.

Self-doubt

First of all, every writer goes through the self-doubt stage of wondering if she or he is truly qualified to call themselves a writer. I was still reluctant to do so after writing for university and local newspapers, becoming a western magazine columnist, and  after being made the managing editor/main writer for a Fortune 500 company newsletter.

Why is that?

I believe one reason for the self-doubt is that aspiring writers grow up having so much respect for writers, especially the ones who pen novels and books. We wonder if we have the talent and right to enter into their “sacred” world. Their world seems too full of fire pits and dragons for us to wander into it with our little fluffy *amateur* suits of armor.

To that, I say, be of good courage . . . if you write, you are a writer! Enjoy that fact, even if nothing you have written has ever been published. If you are working hard toward this goal, you are at least a struggling writer, which equals writer!

The best book I ever read on this subject and the one that actually gave me the personal confidence to pursue writing was Brenda Ueland’s book If You Want to Write. She was a journalist, editor, writer, and a teacher of writing and truly believed that anyone with the spark of desire to write can and will if they work at it. It’s an old book, and it’s full of wise and wonderful advice. If you don’t read it, you are missing something you won’t find anywhere else.

About criticism

When you are starting out, simply don’t cast your pearls before swine. In other words, write and then check your own writing. A really good way to do that and one that worked for me, provided you want to write fiction, is Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. If you don’t want to write fiction, there are multitudes of other books that can help you learn how to self-edit. Editing yourself is an important part of writing.

Another thing you must have in your life is someone who doesn’t mind giving sound craft advice and who is also successful at writing and editing. They most likely won’t be someone from your corral of friends, family, jealous acquaintances, general naysayers, or, unfortunately, fellow amateurs in your writing groups who usually have no idea what they are doing either. Sorry, but that’s the truth.

Don’t give others the opportunity to be your critic.

Take it away from them. They don’t get to see anything until you are way down the road and know you are turning out good copy. By then, it’s still not open for debate from other beginners because you have progressed and only work with professionals or other seasoned writers/editors.

So, now that you,

1. believe you can be, and are, a writer,
2. are going to stop letting other amateurs critique and belittle you,

How do you turn your dreams into reality?

Hint: It's not by being lazy.

• More and more, I hear online beginning writers say that becoming a writer involves all-natural talent so no need to read a bunch of books or go sit in a classroom or attend a seminar.
• Grammar rules? Pffft! Writing is art, so there are no rules.
• Some actually believe that reading books nowadays is just a waste of time.
• Others ask the craziest questions they should be researching themselves or not even asking in the first place, such as “How do you write a fiction novel?” and “What is it like to be in love? I want to write a romance novel.” (That one stupefied me).
• Also, I hear them tell one another that watching YouTube videos about writing is the same as reading a book about it or learning firsthand from experts.

Really?

Let’s pause and consider a few examples.

1.      You smell that certain smell in your home. You jump online searching for an electrician to come immediately before your house burns down, don’t you? Do you know that electrician has more than likely gone through four years of apprenticeship including approximately 8,000 hours of on-the-job training and more than 500 hours of classroom training?

That’s a huge time investment, isn’t it?

2.     The lawyer you call when your drunk neighbor crashes into your car parked in your own driveway and who refuses to take responsibility for it has finished twelve years of lower learning, four years of undergraduate study followed by three years of law school and had to pass the Bar Exam, as well.

Nineteen years of schooling for the privilege of becoming a lawyer!

Whether becoming a carpenter or an airline pilot, a mechanic or a real estate agent, an artist or a writer . . . the bottom line is effort. Every profession demands extensive work and commitment.

Ever hear of the immersion programs for learning a new language? Yeah, it’s like that, but more extended. We learn specialties in life by immersing ourselves in them. Why would anyone think they can become a writer simply because they enjoy writing?

Enjoyment is a by-product of writing, that’s for darned sure, but it isn’t the same as training, practice, trial and error, tutelage, classes, and all that goes into learning a craft.

Say you desire to be an essayist. You already know you have the aptitude because you loved the essay part on all your tests in school while the majority of your classmates found it akin to facing Stephen King’s Pennywise lurking in the gutters. 

Is liking to write essays enough, though? No. You will need to read and study hundreds of essays to finetune your own essay writing. You will need advice, feedback, and constructive criticism.

That’s just one of so many examples.

How about writing novels?

Let me be blunt about this. If you are not willing to study endlessly, challenge yourself continually, read and write almost every day, accept constructive criticism gracefully with the idea of improving in the process, attend writing seminars, know how to spell and use grammar properly, and not be bull-headed when the publisher asks for your manuscript in a certain format whether you think it looks “unartful” or not, then forget about writing novels.

Since I’m a novelist, I warm to that particular subject. Here are my personal tips for beginning novelists:

Read meaningful books, lots of them, on the craft of writing. Go to seminars. Subscribe to the magazine, Writer's Digest. Read novels continually. Write continually. Take a journalism class to learn how to hook readers with your first line, first paragraph, and first page of EVERY chapter. That has helped me more than anything. Learn how to punctuate and spell, and know what current publishers prefer. Right now, for example, Chicago Style ellipses are the proper way to go. Study, and study more. 

In a nutshell . . . 

• If you want to write, write!
• If others are pulling you down into the stinky swamp with their unhelpful or mean criticisms, escape! Take yourself and your talents into the sunshine.
• Lastly, realize that anything worth doing is worth the effort to learn and learn well. It won’t happen overnight. Nothing difficult and incredible does.

Precept upon precept, your knowledge will grow, and so will your confidence. Now, get out there and learn and study and write your head off!

***

http://jodileastewart.com/

Jodi Lea Stewart was born in Texas to an "Okie" mom and a Texan dad. Her younger years were spent in Texas and Oklahoma; hence, she knows all about biscuits and gravy, blackberry picking, chiggers, and snipe hunting. At the age of eight, she moved to a vast cattle ranch in the White Mountains of Arizona. As a teen, she left her studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson to move to San Francisco, where she learned about peace, love, and exactly what she DIDN'T want to do with her life. Since then, Jodi graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Business Management, raised three children, worked as an electro-mechanical drafter, penned humor columns for a college periodical, wrote regional western articles, and served as managing editor of a Fortune 500 corporate newsletter. 

She is the author of a contemporary trilogy set in the Navajo Nation featuring a Navajo protagonist, as well as two historical novels. Her most recent novels are Blackberry Road and The Accidental Road. She currently resides in Arizona with her husband, her delightful 90+-year-old mother, a crazy Standard poodle named Jazz, two rescue cats, and numerous gigantic, bossy houseplants.

1956 . . .

THE ACCIDENTAL ROAD

– Historical Fiction

It’s 1956, and teenager Kat and her mother escape an abusive situation only to stumble into the epicenter of crime peddlers invading Arizona and Nevada in the 1950s. Kat is a serious girl who buries herself in novels and movies and tries to be as inconspicuous as possible. Fading into the background is impossible, however, with a beautiful social butterfly of a mother who just happens to resemble Marilyn Monroe. It’s embarrassing, and the unwanted attention her mother garners could be the downfall of their plan to take Route 66 to the freedom of a new life.

Print and eBook available on Amazon.

1934 . . . 

BLACKBERRY ROAD

– Historical Fiction

Trouble sneaks in one Oklahoma afternoon in 1934 like an oily twister. A beloved neighbor is murdered, and a single piece of evidence sends the sheriff to arrest a black man that a sharecropper’s daughter knows is innocent. Hauntingly terrifying sounds seeping from the woods lead Biddy into even deeper mysteries and despair and finally into the shocking truths of that fateful summer.

Audible, Print, and eBook available on Amazon, etc.