The Constant Writer

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about writing was given to me by an old college friend and relayed on a piece of paper dredged from the internet. There was a whole list of literary tenets directed at the aspiring author, but the one that most stuck out for me was the first. It read simply: WRITE, READ, READ and WRITE some more. The caps were for emphasis, but it implies a lot in it's simplicity. If you're going to be a writer, don't say you're going to do it (and to coin a well known sporting phrase...) - just do it.

It's more than that, though (the READ part of this dictate not withstanding - I'll deal with that later). Applying a little interpretive translation, it doesn't just say WRITE, it actually means WRITE ALL THE TIME. Laxity is the enemy of any author. It certainly dogs my heels like a frothing Hound of the Baskervilles, eyes aglow, slavering maw gaping.

I'll admit it. I'm a bit of a part-time writer. I tend to rest on my authorial laurels and only put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) when I know I'm working on a commissioned project. This is a bad practice. Put simply, listen to the first edict of writing - WRITE. It's not capped up for nothing. By allowing gaps (even the less significant) in actually doing some writing you can allow your mind to slip out of the 'authorial mode', and once you've done that it's very hard to get back into it. I had this problem after writing Back from the Dead. My next commissioned piece didn't turn up until over a year later in the form of a short story. Boy, did I struggle. I reckon the story turned out pretty well in the end (it's the one that featured in Invasion!) but who knows how good it would have been had I kept writing in the interim. I'll never know. I liken it to sporting acumen. You'll only get better if you train and, as an additional kicker, if you don't train, you don't only plateau you also get worse.

It's no different with writing. Train your mind like you would your body. This is where reading comes in, too. By doing both, you're effectively engaging in the mental push-ups necessary to keep your creative acumen sharp. Truth be told, writing anything is a boon to maintaining creative fitness. It's one of the reasons why I plan to do more regular blog posts - at least one a day.

But this brings me on to something else. In order to fill the gaps between my novels and other written projects, I'm going to start writing a tie-in short story/novella for my first literary foray Back from the Dead on this very blog! This is part down to demand from a few fans (bless you all) and to keep my writing mojo at maximum capacity. Bear in mind, though, that this is mainly for me and it is in no way official or represent Black Library. I want to write in my spare time and this is just my way of sharing it with those who have an interest (post feedback at your leisure, of course).

I won't go into detail here, rather I'll save that for a later post where I can introduce the piece properly, explain how it's going to work and maybe delve into a few thought process, too for those of you reading with a psychoanalytical bent to your personalities.