Writing advice

Don’t think it away, either.

I have to admit I got this one from an episode of The Waltons called The Literary Man from Season One.

A older writer named A.J. Covington passes through Walton’s Mountain and regales John-Boy with tales of his travels and the stories he planned to write. Late in the episode, the old writer confessed to John-Boy that he didn’t really write any more.

He had made the mistake of talking his stories away.

I never heard of that, but it made sense immediately.

There’s something about the rhythm and crackle of decent writing that needs to come to existence on the page, not the tongue.

Once we speak it, we might compromise it somehow.

I don’t tend to talk my work away but I do have a tendency to think about my ideas too much. I try to avoid that kind of thought, though I don’t always succeed.

Instead, once I get an idea about a direction to take or a scene to tackle I try to get right at it; words on paper as quickly as possible.

I’m in deep into the sequel to my first novel, John J. McDermott & the 1971 U.S. Open.

The working title (and my bet the final title) of the sequel is Cottonwood.

I am dedicated to moving the narrative along at a rapid clip. I hike fast. I play golf fast. I speak fast and I write fast, until I take a break, which I did too often with JJM.

That’s a mistake I will not make again. In fact, I’ve put a serious time limit on writing the narrative to the sequel. I want to finish the narrative by the end of 2019. It’ll take another three to five months to edit and format the dang thing, so it’s really not all that fast compared to other writers.

Anyway, I wanted to pass along the best writing advice I ever heard. The advice is in Doug Nichol’s 2016 film, California Typewriter and it came from the late Sam Shepard.

I’ll paraphrase the advice:

Never quit when you’re stuck. When you start up again you’ll still be stuck.

Now the funny thing is that I rarely consider myself to be struck. If I fail to work on my book it’s nearly always because I’ve been distracted by lesser things like work. But, there’s still a lot of wisdom and usefulness to what Shepard said. Since I heard his admonition I try to quit when I’m on a roll I know I can keep it going later. In fact, a lot of times the momentum of the roll is actually enhanced by the renewed energy that comes from taking a break to go on a hike or drink a fine IPA.

When I do nudge up against stuckness (to borrow a word made up by Robert Pirsig) I dedicate myself to the kind of written thrashing about that, if I’m lucky, gets a few more words and hopefully good ideas onto the page. The small success of getting those kinds of difficult words down blunts the sharpness of feeling a little stuck and replaces it with the confidence that a way forward can be found with a bit more effort.

Anyway, think about what Sam said the next time you find yourself stuck.

Paul Cervantes

More good writing advice: Don’t talk your story away.

Best writing advice ever!