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If you get a chance, watch "Extras," a BBC sitcom co-written and performed by Ricky Gervais.
Gervais' style of comedy is immediately recognizable. It's so painfully true, you will want to cry even as you're laughing.
Gervais has made a fortune saying things that none of us would dare say for fear of offending or upsetting the social order. He pokes fun at the thin veneer of political correctness that hides what so many of us are privately thinking.
As writers, we'd be wise to learn from Gervais. Gervais is painfully honest, especially when it hurts.
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I took one creative writing course as an undergraduate and a whole year of writing courses as a postgraduate. I earned an M.A. in writing, with distinction. I learned nothing of any use.
That may sound arrogant, but it's simply an observation based on personal experience. I write for a living. Writing for a living has required me to develop a skill set that's completely unrelated to anything I was taught in university.
So if I were asked to teach a writing class, based on the concepts that have proven most useful to me as a writer, what I'd teach is this:
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I've been struggling with blocks almost since I began writing. I've been embarrassed of my writing, felt my writing was no good, worried that no one was ever going to read it, and wondered why I bother.
I think most writers encounter these blocks - not just me. Julia Cameron discusses the ways writers keep themselves from writing in her must-read book The Artist's Way. Even Virginia Woolf had to murder her "Angel in the House."
You're not alone if you have to struggle against yourself to create.
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Writing is something you do one day at a time, day by day until the months have stretched into a year. It’s only then that you discover, “Hey! There’s a book’s worth of material here.” The rush of enthusiasm and pride throws you into writing that first draft, sharpening, tightening, polishing … until you read your last few sentences and realize it’s finished.
You’d never write again if you realized that you were only halfway through.
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As a writer, your greatest asset is your mind. A mind brimming with ideas can make writing a joy; while a grumpy, sleepy, or otherwise balking mind can wreck your day.
If you're a commercial writer, you can't wait for inspiration. You have to be able to write well day after day, whether you feel like it or not, whether you're hungover or not, whether you have any ideas or not. Few bosses will allow you to take a day off just because your brain is foggy or otherwise indisposed.
Unfortunately, many beginning writers assume that their talents are at the mercy of the Muse. If she smiles on them with an image or a memorable line, they scribble furiously, confident in their talent. But when the Muse goes quiet, their brain goes silent as well.
You cannot afford to think this way if you want to be a commercial writer. You can't just write when you feel like it. You don't have the time to wait until an idea comes to you. You've got to teach yourself to write even if your mind is somewhere else.
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The biggest mistake new writers make is focusing on their writing at the expense of living.
Writing is just writing. If you have nothing to say, writing it down is a waste of time. Sure, you may be able to put together some clever sentences, but the most people will be able to say is that your work is a triumph of skill over substance.
The best writing - and by this I mean writing that the general public will want to read over and over again, generation upon generation - is based on insight.
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The story of how I found myself writing books has been told elsewhere. This is the story of how I wrote those books.
Writing self-help or how-to books is a different process to writing a novel or a travel book. Much of it comes down to two skills:
- The ability to reduce complex topics to simple 3-step processes.
- The ability to produce quotable phrases.
I’ll talk about each in turn.
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I’ve always wanted to write a book.
It just sounds so cool: a book. Even better: “My book.” Still better: “Have you read my book?”
I can still remember, back in college, when a 6-page paper was a serious writing project. It took a lot of research, writing, and re-writing to get to that number. Then, my senior year, I wrote a 10-page paper one day almost by accident, and the teacher accepted it. “Wow,” I thought afterwards to myself. “I just wrote 10 pages. Me!”
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