This Year You Write Your Novel Book

This book gives you pretty much the same advice that the other books like this one give, but it is good to hear such advice from Mosley: a writer you can respect, a writer who writes regularly and well. Besides, I was ready to hear such advice, for I've hit a roadblock in the novel I began sixteen months ago. Creative inspiration--which I've relied on since my lyric poetry days--is no longer doing the trick, and I needed a kick in the rear to start me writing again.

Mosley was just the kick I needed, and I think this is because his emphasis on doing it now--this year you write your novel--leads him to emphasize something that I for one can never hear enough: inspired or uninspired, you must sit down every day, for two or three hours, and write your novel. Every single day. But then Mosley added something that I found particularly helpful: the writing you do'although it may never include random journal entries, emails, blog posts, goodreads reviews, etc.--may include revision and planning, for these are essential to your novel.

So I developed a new strategy. I work on my novel every day, but right now I am not composing any new chapters. Instead, I am revising the first two-thirds of my novel as if it were the product of some deceased author whose work I have been commissioned to complete. As I revise, I type out notes on a separate page, looking for any hints from the dead scribe which may help me write the last eight chapters. Once I am finished, I will make a detailed outline (something I have never before made use of) and then finish the novel according to the developed plan.

I'm convinced this will work. Me, that dead author dude, and Walter Mosley: together we can complete this thing.*


These are some passages from Mosley's book which I particularly liked:


IT ALL BEGINS WITH POETRY:

Poetry is the fount of all writing. Without a deep understanding of poetry and its practices, any power the writer might have is greatly diminished.

THE ONE AND THE MANY:

What you have to remember is that a novel is the one and the many. There is an overarching story, and then there are all the smaller narratives that come together to make up that longer tale.

WRITE WITHOUT RESTRAINT:

The story you tell, the characters you present, will all have dark sides to them. If you want to write believable fiction, you will have to cross over the line of your self-restraint and revel in the words and ideas that you would never express in your everyday life.

LIKE A JOURNEY BY BOAT:

The process of writing a novel is like taking a journey by boat. You have to continually set yourself on course. If you get distracted or allow yourself to drift, you will never make it to the destination. It's not like highly defined train tracks or a highway; this is a path that you are creating, discovering.

*Update: This book did help, but eventually I violated the everyday rule, and fell behind again. It is a year and a half later, and I still have four chapters to finish: 60,000 words completed, 12,000 words to go. Plus an outline to tell me where exactly I'm going. And a brand new New Year's resolution too.