Gredunza Press

Killer. An idea is all we ever have when we begin. Sometimes it’s a feeling, or a character, or a song lyric. It’s the kernel from which you build everything, and you can’t really begin a story without one. 

But an idea and seven fifty will get you a quality latte, you know? 

Pretty much every story I’ve written comes to me as a movie trailer in some way. This happens quite a lot. Every time this happens to me, it’s spontaneous and exciting. I want to write down everything. I want to get it all down. And then I want to expand on the idea until I’ve got a trilogy and a movie deal. I met writers in University who began trilogies all the time. I don’t think any of them were ever finished. 

Write down your idea. Does it fill a page? Did it make sense to the person you love and trust? Pitch your idea to yourself, to your wife or husband or roommate. Do they think it’s good? Good. That’s a good start. 

Take your idea and write down everything you can think of. Don’t worry about it making sense. It’ll make sense later. You can’t get it right. You can’t even hope to get it passable. It’s just an idea. An idea isn’t a book yet. It isn’t even a story. It’s just an idea. It’s nothing until you begin to put the pieces together. 

And build from the ground up. There’s an old cliché about writing that it’s like building a house. Well, writing a novel is like building a house. You don’t have to worry about a novel yet. You can start thinking about a novel when you have a 100 pages down and the story isn’t finished. At this point, you don’t even have a scene. You can outline at this point, but outlines are procrastination traps; you’re not really writing, are you? 

There’s a metaphor I really like when it comes to book writing: LP, EP, 45. Music people know what these are: they’re the length of the three different kinds of records. A “45” is a single. It’s three or four minutes on both sides, containing an “A” and “B” side (that’s how the term B-side came to be, people who have never seen a record). A 45 is not a bad place to start. You’ve got an idea, make a single. Make a really short story. Do your best with your idea to craft a simple, executable short story. Because your novel isn’t going to work if it isn’t going to work as a good short story first. 

Once you’ve got your single, write your EP. Those are the records with 5 or 6 songs on them. It’s usually a third of the record and a handful of extra songs. It’s a good metaphor because a lot of what will be in these first, shorter versions, you’re probably going to leave out of the novel. 

The really big plus side of this is that just about anybody will read your story if it’s 10 pages. And most of those people will be excited to see how you’ve expanded it to 30. And those same people will be just as excited to see it expanded to a full book. Family and friends are generally really supportive about writing, often to the point where you can’t trust them for honest criticism (but that’s another hunk of advice). 

Okay, so you’ve written your idea (your great, awesome, incredible idea) out as a really short story and a slightly longer short story. Do you still like your idea? Do you still think it has the legs to go 300 pages? Not every idea is going to be a great novel, and some ideas reach their peak at the short story stage. And that’s okay. Hey, you’ve written a short story. That’s awesome. A short story is a great business card in the writing world. No serious writer doesn’t have a few. 

But if you’ve written a 45 and an EP and you’re still hungry to get that novel out, bloody well run for it. Your idea’s passed the test. I’m 100% more confident about anybody’s idea if it can survive two smaller revisions, some time, and a little support from others. It’s hungry to live. You’re hungry to give birth to the damn thing. Don’t let anything stop you.

Your job as a writer is to produce a book every now and then, to promote that book to the best of your ability, and to be aware of changing trends in your industry so that you can evolve and stay afloat. That's a fairly straightforward job description, but it leaves out some of the most important aspects of being a writer: what not to do, namely, be distracted by shiny objects all the time. 

This Joy of Tech comic explains this process (while also making a point about ad blocking unrelated to my point). 

The Joy of Tech is a fantastic comic strip. The people who make it are really, really good at distracting you. They're what I like to call professional distractions: they make their living distracting you from your real work. 

Most of the profitable companies online are professional distractions. 

Web comics are a great example of this. Movies, music, and other old-school, traditional media isn't so much. You generally listen to music while working, and you generally set aside time to watch television or movies. That's not work time, that's play time, and play time is incredibly important to staying focused (all work and no play makes Jack some kind of bore, after all). But web comics generally aren't viewed during play hours; they're mostly viewed 9-5, monday to friday, when you're supposed to be working. You take a quick, five-minute break to check out a page you like. It's not much time, but it is distracting you. It's like going out for a smoke. 

Much like cheesecake, professional distractions are okay in tiny increments, but they can quickly add up to diabetes (well, metaphorically). Ever lost 6 hours to browsing the web? You're no longer a writer at this point; you're a consumer of distractions. You're the professional now, and your job is viewing websites that have nothing to do with your work.

And while there are a few jobs where you can make money doing this, they are likely all taken by people who are doing this more often and better than you. Keep professional distractions as the five-minute distraction once-or-twice a day they are meant to be. Cut the fat, too. You don't need a full newspaper-sized page of webcomics a day (sorry I'm really focusing on comics. I do mean any small consumable media that updates on a regular basis). Be a good curator of your professional distractions. You'll thank yourself for it the day you realize your Google Reader feed no longer sprouts that "1000+" tag. 

I was recently inspired by Merlin Mann's blog post about his new standing desk, which is little more than a tool station, meant to sit next to a car and hold your pliers. The philosophy behind it is both asinine and revolutionary: 

I do really like that this thing was built for rugged—if completely different—work. That’s what writing is supposed to be, right? Hard work.

Gredunza Press just moved. In the move, we lost an entire room, where our office used to be. So our two desks became one. But we had this leftover cutting board/wine rack thing from IKEA and so I decided to copy Merlin's strategy. I would try working standing up, on a desk that isn't a desk but gets the job done. Fantastically, it has a serious effect on how my brain works while working.

You know how the worst thing you can do when trying to be productive is to be wearing your houserobe while the TV is on, right? Well, this is just a scaled version of that advice. It's more difficult on my wrists, and there's a small crink in my neck. There's a little bit of fiddling to be done with height and eyelines, but you know what? My back doesn't hurt anymore. More importantly, my eyes aren't getting tired. More importantly than that, I don't feel like checking twitter or Google Reader. Because I'm standing, because I'm working, I don't feel like slacking off. Position is everything.

This is, of course, completely relative. Standing while writing won't work for everyone. In fact, I would wager there are just as many people who can finish entire novels sitting laid back on the couch while music blares and they have four kids playing around them. The point is, there are lots of different ways to do this. Sit, stand. Work at a desk, work on your lap, work off a tape recorder. Write on legal paper, write on Google Docs, write on walls with spray paint. This may sound like wishy-washy advice, but it's very important. You don't need the perfect ideal setup to write a novel: you need the setup that will get the novel written. It's very possible that you will be uncomfortable the entire time.

Personally, I think I'm the type who isn't allowed to be comfortable. The second I become accustomed to a situation, my brain wanders. So I have to keep changing things up. Work in the office, work at home, work at Starbucks. Work upside down, work while cooking, work while drinking. This standing-up desk won't last forever. I doubt it'll last more than a few weeks. I'll become complacent. But that's okay. That's how I work. You're probably going to work completely differently. It's important to be able to adapt, to work with what's working for the book. In short, make it easy to make it work.