Claudia Gray is the guest author for this Thursday's Author Tales. Claudia is the author of Evernight, which will be released May 27, 2008! You can read my review of Evernight, here. Evernight is the first in a series of four books, the next book is called Stargazer.
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One of the most common types of posts I see on writers' blogs is the "How To" post – how to become a better writer, a published writer, a "real" writer, etc. Naturally I've pored over a lot of these posts myself, and I've read some fabulous advice.
Yet no matter how helpful these posts are, I doubt I'm going to wind up writing many similar "how to" blogs myself, for one simple reason –
The more I learn about writing, the more I realize that almost anything is possible.
I will always believe that you need to be an avid reader to be a good writer. I will also always believe that writing regularly, even when you don't feel "inspired," is essential. But as sure as I write that, there is some mad genius up in Saskatchewan or down in Santiago who has read only the King James Bible and the backs of some cereal boxes and who spends exactly one Sunday out of ten writing a few pages of what will prove to be the greatest novel ever composed.
The number of people who think they're the exception to the general rules will always outnumber the actual exceptions, of course. Publishing contains so many special snowflakes that it all blurs into a blizzard after a while. That doesn't mean the exceptions aren't out there.
I am very much still learning about my own process as a writer, and I may blog about that from time to time. But my solutions aren't everyone's solutions. The same methods that propel my work (extensive outlining, for instance) might bog somebody else down. The same methods that are effective for others (setting a word quota each day, for instance) might drive me mad. Sometimes I see aspiring writers arguing over methods as though they were holy dogma – friendships have ended over Courier vs. Times New Roman. I suspect that too many of them get hung up on "the rules," the supposed absolutes about what you must and must not do, in the belief that if they get everything right, if they land on every single square on the game board, they can be sure of success.
Unfortunately, that's not true. There's no one right way to be an author. If there is, neither I nor any other writer I've ever known has learned it.
So I won't end up blogging about how to become a better writer. All those posts would boil down to this: Discover what works for you. Don't be afraid to try new methods or to abandon old ones. Listen to what works for others, but trust your instincts. Trust your story. And don't pay any attention to the odds against you – almost anything is possible.
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For more info about Claudia and her awesome series check out the following links.
website: http://www.claudiagray.com/
blog: http://claudiagray.livejournal.com/
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/135634980
Claudia was also so extremely nice as to give me a copy of Evernight to give away!! All you have to do is leave a comment with your email address! The deadline will be May 27th at midnight, eastern time. Your entries will also put you into the monthly contest! But remember if you win this copy of Evernight, you'll be excluded from winning the Monthly Contest.