here are the Top 7 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Writing Habit

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Welcome to your November newsletter. I hope this finds you well and happily productive. As always, I encourage you to contact me with topics you'd like to see covered in future newsletters. Since my goal is to make "Write Through It" helpful and inspiring to you, your ideas are paramount.

Also, writing is a lonely process. I'm hoping this newsletter reminds you that you are part of a community (no matter how geographically spread out we may be) and, while we might write very different things, we all face similar struggles along the way.

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I'm grateful for all the positive feedback I received regarding a past newsletter, 7 Ways to Ruin a Perfectly Good Manuscript. (If you recently joined the subscriber list and would like a copy, just let me know and I'll send you one.) I'm so glad so many of you enjoyed it. Therefore, in the spirit of that, I offer another tongue-in-cheek approach to the maddening writing process, this time focusing on the writing habit itself. You've heard that writing isn't just something you declare you're doing--you only become a writer when you sit down time after time after time and actually write. And then plan to sit down again and again and again, with only your PC (or notebook/pen) and your ideas for company.

I'm sure you've been given the advice to go out there and lasso your own muse--make her clear her calendar so that she works on your schedule. That's swell advice if your goal is to nurture a perfectly good writing habit. But when you're trying to wreck one, just sit back and wait for the muse to pull you onto the dance floor. In the meantime, you can think of yourself as a tortured artist; you probably don't skulk in an unheated garret, but at least you can wear the tortured artist writer's block badge. And you can blame it all on an estranged, willful muse.

Imagine how you'd react to meeting a musician who has sworn off listening to music (other than his own). He can't really hear your side of the conversation because the club is playing music and he's had to cram his ears with cotton. "I don't want to be influenced by other composers," he explains.

Take a page from that quirky guy's book and stop reading. Especially don't read in the genre you're trying to publish. That's an effective way to starve the seeds of habit you've already scattered. If you don't read, dear writers, you won't be unduly influenced by other authors and start to write like them. I mean, you're trying to write like you, but you end up reading William Faulkner and start writing like him instead. Don't you just hate how that happens? Nevermind that all the experts say that type of thing doesn't happen, but instead the more you read the better YOU'LL get (and we should all be so 'unlucky' to have the 'problem' of writing like Faulkner).

3) Declare that revision is for wimps.

If it's on the page, if you printed it out, it's immortal, right? Unless you shred it or drown it, it's still there, all your words strung together on 20-lb partly-recycled paper. So why go back and change things? Revision is one of those necessary steps that successful writers swear by. Jane Yolen has told us that there isn't any such thing as writing, because "all writing is rewriting." Ernest Hemingway, in his inimitably frank style said, "All first drafts are sh*t" (minus the asterisk).

So when you decide to usurp traditional advice, you'll want to skip this time-consuming step. Revision is a process fraught with decisions: Do I cut this? Or maybe this? Do I flesh this scene out or axe it? Is this character really necessary, or did I just write him because I couldn't resist making fun of my ex-husband in a way he wouldn't be able to sue me for?

Undeniable truth: many first drafts are absolutely transformed with repeated revision. But when you're trying to throw a wrench in a logical writing routine, this aspect of the process should be the first to go.

Writers need other writers--for lots of reasons, including support and encouragement, and especially to act as readers. No writer is an island, my dear colleagues. You can't see the flaws in your own work because you're simply too close to it. Once you think of a plot twist, you've lost the ability to be surprised by it. The situation on the page might feel plausible and authentic to you, but remember: it's your baby. Parents can't be fully objective.

When you hand your work off to a trusted reader(s), you will often receive invaluable feedback and find places to improve, places you would never have arrived at on your own. So, despite the fact that you have people in your life eager to read your work, keep your writing locked in a drawer where it can never receive the nourishment to grow. Let an editor/agent be the second set of eyes to see it (yours being the first, of course)--she'll promptly remand it to the drawer once more.

Are you picking up a theme here? Much of wrecking a good writing habit means becoming passive, sitting back and waiting for good fortune to rain down on you. So don't buy into the sage advice that "the difference between a published writer and an unpublished one is that the published one didn't give up." And don't heed Rockefeller's "Success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." (Sure, if you call the Rockefellers "successful"...)

Maybe the New Yorker's fiction editor will latch onto the rumor that you've got a fine mind and can turn a dandy sentence and will send you an embossed invitation to submit. Of course that sounds ridiculous, but I know writers who dream of being published and will not send in their work. And I'm not minimizing that protective instinct; sending your work off is often terrifying, especially when the odds are stacked in favor of rejection. Still, it's the only way to ever see yourself in print (unless you self-publish, that is).

My 19-year-old son is certain that if he keeps playing Metallica on his electric guitar near an open window, someday a music producer will happen to walk by (why, I don't know, since we're hundreds of miles from the nearest recording studio), recognize his talent, and sign him on the spot. I used to try to get him to see the flaw in his reasoning, but, within the frame of this newsletter, I'm thinking maybe he's on to something.

The corollary to the rule of waiting for an invitation to submit is: If you do throw your work in the ring and it gets rejected, throw in the towel. (I think this one speaks for itself.)

Misery loves company, eh? Join a "critique" group that only kvetches. If/when the members demand to see/hear your work, and if/when they actually start discussing submissions (especially ideas for revision and ways the work can become stronger), stand up and make a scene (and then exit, of course).

Routinely tell everyone you know you're a writer and discuss all the ways it is painful (and it truly often is...no sarcasm intended). If you do decide to write something, rein in your creative ideas and just write about what it feels like to be a writer. You'll find that it's actually a lot of fun to talk about writing, to read about the trials and tribulations of writing, to connect with other would-be writers and only discuss hypotheticals (and how misunderstood we are as a group...and we are!).

Undeniable truth: real writing, the kind that ultimately produces a halfway decent manuscript, is not so much fun most of the time. Remember this brilliant statement (I didn't hatch it--I'm only passing it on): "The real writer is the one who stays at the desk." So when you're in the middle of ruining a perfectly good habit, start here...fight the discipline to put pen to paper and just bask in the complex idea of being a writer.

(For those of you who might be getting lost in the labyrinth of my sarcasm, let me just state for the record that talking about writing and kvetching and finding like-minded people with whom you can bemoan the perils of writing are all absolutely essential in staying sane and in feeding your spirit. However, that's just one aspect of the writing life: You must pull yourself away from people at times and stop talking about writing so that you can actually do it.)

*A note on the use of "when the urge to write hits you." Confession and clarification: I only used that phrase for its dramatic punch in the heading. Most of us are not actually hit by "urges" to write on a regular basis and instead have to summon all the discipline we can muster, chain ourselves to the desk and pretend there aren't 2,647 other things we'd rather be doing at that very moment.

One of the most important items in a writer's toolbox is raw curiosity, often manifested in the What if question. We look around, see people and places and situations, and think about what might happen under certain circumstances.

Robert Cormier said that the idea for his classic novel The Chocolate War struck him as he watched his teen son come out of school with fundraiser candy in tow. Cormier asked himself, "What would happen if he refused to sell the chocolates?"

When you're trying to nurture a productive writing habit, keep yourself open to the rich possibility all around you. Listen to and look at everything. Don't be afraid to question. Remember to wonder why. But when you're trying to unravel a solid writing habit, close yourself off to the world. Squeeze your eyes shut before you witness something memorable. Train yourself to stop asking why or what if or what might happen. See events and ideas as dead-ends instead of long, unbroken stretches of highway.

Need to know what a plumber does in his/her off hours? Writing about a traveling hairdresser yet you can't tell the difference between split ends and a cowlick? Does a hedge fund investor unexpectedly walk into your novel, requiring you to know how s/he thinks (yet the riskiest thing you've ever sunk cash into was a 6-month CD)? Not to worry: there's an excellent resource for getting into the heads and hearts of hundreds of different personality types. Written by a psychologist, this is a helpful, entertaining resource for every fiction writer. When you're looking for depth and detail about a character type that your own experience can't give you, you'll turn to Edelstein's book again and again.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrecorded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."

Check out my Web site for other articles on writing, and, if you haven't already, to take advantage of my f*r*e*e 5-page critique (which includes a 20-minute phone consultation).