Changing the Mindset

On Tuesday, our guest blogger Larry Brooks said:

Before you will ever write a draft that works – a draft that is publishable – you must first find your story. And to find it, you must search for it. A story is not an idea or even a concept, it is the flight plan that ensues from that starting point.

I’ve been writing for longer than I like to admit, only because I haven’t gotten a novel published yet. But in those early years, I did EXACTLY what Larry warns against. And worse, I’m afraid.

My mindset used to be that writing was art and that art flowed naturally out of the artist. If I worked too hard at writing, then I just wasn’t good enough yet. I had to keep trying new stories using this very flowy form of writing. Tapping into my subconscious, as it were.

I never got any novels finished this way. Lots of beginnings, but never any endings. Or, endings, but with no middles.

And, here is my worst part. I started submitting. To the big publishers. Ha!

Back then I was writing for the CBA and who else to submit to, but Bethany House? A very kind editor wrote me an encouraging letter—could she tell I was a wet-behind-the-ears college student? And so I tried her again with another story. And another. And then she requested one of the manuscripts!

But, I hadn’t written past the middle.

So I quickly wrote the rest of the book and submitted to her. The first draft.

*I hear the collective gasp of the writing blog-o-verse.* But remember, at this point my mindset was flowy, organic, artsy. That’s truly how I thought novels were written. That published writers were just THAT GOOD on their first drafts. Pre-internet you’d never see an author’s early drafts. Their work just appeared on the shelves, already close-to-perfect.

Even though I knew my work wasn’t as good as what I saw in the bookstores, I thought I was ready to submit because then an editor would point out all the parts that needed sprucing up. Right?

So yes. My writing journey has been a long one and is still continuing. But I GET IT now. Those early letters from an editor remind me that I have good ideas, but need to work on my execution. Writing does, indeed take work.

Flowy, organic, artsy? Within the confines of my story structure–YES. All by themselves?–NO.

(Aside: I also thought drawing was the same way, but then I took a drawing class and a water colors class, and guess what? They have techniques, too! Please don’t tell me I was the only naive artist out there!)