Learning from Other Authors

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FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s common for us to grab snippets of inspiration from other authors, especially those who have enjoyed some measure of success. Last week I came across an article in the latest edition of Newswrite¹, the member’s magazine for the NSW Writers Centre, where Hannah Kent shared her five bits of advice she wish she’d been given when starting out on her writing journey.

If you’re unfamiliar with Hannah Kent, she’s an Aussie who has received critical acclaim for her debut novel, Burial Rites. Funny, I was just looking at my previous post for ICFW and I mentioned that Burial Rites was the next novel in my TBR pile. Unfortunately, I’ve got sidetracked on others in my pile so have still to tackle it.

I’ve watched and read a few interviews with Hannah and it’s quite apparent she is a very accomplished author and has a natural talent for writing. So I was intrigued to read her five bits of advice. What struck me was that the five were nothing I hadn’t read before but Hannah had her own particular insight into each that I thought I’d share with you all.

Photo courtesy of
HannahKentauthor.com

1. Read

One of the old maxims: “Read a lot, write a lot,” which I’m sure we’re all familiar. Hannah expressed a view that we should read widely. “How else will you work out what is good and what is bad?”

Historically, I’ve tended to read mostly in my own genre, but have started to read more outside of it. And I am enjoying the freshness that comes from reading other genres but it’s also great to then switch back to something fast and edgy.

2. Cultivate Empathy

As Hannah states, this is an important life skill. For a writer, “empathy will enable you not only to write about characters very different from yourself, but to understand them too. It will help you create character motivation, backgrounds, voice.”

“Empathy, put simply, will give you a keener insight into the human heart.”

Hannah mentions that reading literary fiction was recently proven to increase a reader’s ability to empathise. She encourages authors when they’re people watching (as well do) to try to put yourself in others shoes (or minds) and ask what they may be feeling or wanting out of a particular situation. I must try it this week when I’m standing in a queue at the grocery store.

3. Work hard, be disciplined

Even though she was intuitively good at language it surprised her how essential diligence was to completing her novel. Hannah stresses the importance of adopting a “professional attitude.” This is consistent with what so many others have said and was an important takeaway that I gleaned a number of years ago, especially after reading Steven Pressfield’s “The War of Art.” A professional turns up every day; they honour deadlines (even their own) and don’t shirk the responsibility of getting the work done.

Photo courtesy of
StevenPressfield.com

4. Expect it to be difficult and don’t expect to feel ready

All of us would wholeheartedly agree with this one. Mastering anything requires hard work. Certainly, writing comes more intuitively to some authors (I’m not one of them) just like with any skill.

Hannah acknowledges the anxieties we all experience as we sit down at the computer:

“Writing is difficult, and your doubt won’t dissipate overnight. Be patient with yourself. What will happen is that you’ll become accustomed to the doubt and difficulty. You’ll accept it as an intrinsic part of the writing process, and this preparedness will help you eventually ignore it.”

One of the struggles I think many of us experience is getting into the groove. When you’re only able to grab “moments of a day” to write, establishing one’s flow can take a while and I find the longer it takes the more the anxieties badger me and distractions become more attractive.

It’s where having a collaborator in the Holy Spirit is such a blessing. He knows our anxieties and it’s in surrendering them to Him and soldiering on that we can experience release allowing us to get into a good writing groove.

5. Write from the Soul

Hannah differentiates writing from the heart to writing from the soul. It was her thoughts on what this means that most captured my attention and has given me added encouragement in my writing these past few days.

“Writing from the soul means to write about that which moves you at a profound level or in order to discover meaning, and to have purity of intention. You’ll know when you’re writing from the soul because the writing becomes the reward.”

My characters have appreciated this in recent days by being able to express themselves where prior to that they felt constrained by my inhibitions.

Write because you love it, “because there is no other way for you to breathe.”

Love that.

What of Hannah’s five grabbed your attention the most and/or what piece of advice do you wish you had known before you started out on your writing journey?

Note:1. Newswrite, The NSW Writers Centre bi-monthly magazine, Issue 216 August – September 2014. ISSN 1039-7531, pp20-21.

Ian Acheson is an author and strategy consultant based in Northern Sydney. Ian's first novel of speculative fiction, Angelguard, is now available in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. You can find more about Angelguard at Ian's website, on his author Facebook page and Twitter

Each Day is a Surprise

‘Treat each day as a surprise’ is advice from a friend of mine.

If you ask me it is good advice because we never know exactly what the day will bring.

The other day while my husband and I were walking along a beach near our home we were surprised by two pods of dolphins swimming so close to shore we could have practically walked out to meet them. Sadly, we didn’t have the camera to capture them but it certainly brightened our day.

Earlier this week on another beach walk, my husband found this shell which has been added to my collection.

It is lovely to find one so full of colour and perfectly intact washed up.

When it comes to surprises and writing, one morning I received an email from someone about Homes Kid, one of my poems she had read.  I’m not sure where the woman who is a senior lecturer in social sciences at one of our universities found it. Probably it was in the literary magazine where it was originally published, way back in 1995.  Being a person who lectures at university and who was researching about children placed into foster care and care situations, she emailed me about the poem’s origin. We emailed back and forth a bit about the inspiration of and the content of the poem. The result was she ended up buying a copy of Kaleidoscope to read my other poems. 

Just recently I was given Echoes of Memory - poems by John O’ Donohue. Apparently I had mentioned it once in passing and my son had picked up on it, even though I had forgotten all about it. Once I started to read I was immediately transported by the simplicity and beauty of the language. You can be sure it is one of those poetry books I will be pulling out and reading again and again.

As writers, whether we write fiction, poetry or some other form of nonfiction one of the most important things we can do as well as write, is to read and keep on reading. We need to read to see what is out on the market place already. Not that we want to copy the style or ideas of someone else, far from it! But as we read and read widely we see what works and what doesn’t. We begin to see faults that may show up in our own writing and find ways to overcome them. Since I have been writing I have found I have become a more critical reader. Has anyone else found this? So longs as it helps me weed out the unnecessary words, dialogue or whatever it might be in my own writing that is not working, then it is a useful tool to have.

Often it is not only reading the good books with fully fleshed characters or beautiful prose we learn from. We can learn from those with cardboard cut out characters, false sounding dialogue and clunky sentences because we learn what to avoid. Anything that rings false has the capacity to pull the reader out of a story, a poem or piece of writing. That’s something we definitely don’t want to happen to those reading our work.

When you read are you conscious of looking out for specific things or do you just get so caught up in the story or the beauty of the language that you find yourself unable to distance yourself and view it objectively? Love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

Dale writes fiction and poetry. Her latest novel is Streets on a Map is currently available as an E book. She has also written children’s books, bible studies, Sunday school material, devotionals, and articles about marriage, home and Christian living. She is currently at work on a new novel, tentatively titled Sandstone Madonna.