I found Neil Gaiman’s 8 Rules of Writing at www.brainpickings.org
“Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.”
I love to collect Neil Gaiman quotes on writing. He has a lot of good things to say. In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing published in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her commandments. Here are 8 from the one and only Neil Gaiman:
- Write
- Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.
- Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.
- Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is.
- Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
- Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
- Laugh at your own jokes.
- The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
I meet a lot of people who want to be writers. I try to encourage them as much as I can, but if they don’t actually sit down and take the time to write there’s not much anybody can say that will help. That’s why I think number one, in all its simplicity, is crucial. If you’re not a writer, this can apply to anything that you aspire to do, but never seem to get around to.
So what do you think? Do any of these “rules” resonate with you? As always, I’d love to hear from you.
—————-
Have you read my latest book?
The Secret Sense of Wildflower
“…astute observations and wonderfully turned phrases, with nary a cliche to be found. She could be an adolescent Scout Finch…A quietly powerful story, at times harrowing but ultimately a joy to read.“
– Kirkus Reviews (starred review) To read the entire Kirkus review go here.
From a couple of our lovely email subscribers:
“Hi Susan—I think all a writer really needs is #1, WRITE! Put it all out there, one word at a time and see how it goes. Most days, not so good but then there is that day when Voila, it all comes together. Writing is never easy, but who ever said it was. Mary”
“And thank you for reminding me of Leonard’s 10 rules. — Richard”
#5 and #6 are, in combination, profound. The subtext of #5 is that it is your book, you are the writer, and no one else can tell you exactly how to write it. Well, except your editor. The point of #6 is that knowing when to give up is a necessary piece of effective perseverance. The pursuit of perfection is to dwell in perpetual purgatory.
I am not sure anyone worthy of becoming a writer needs #1 and #2. If anything, I wish more people who think they can write just skipped #1, #2, and absolutely #3. So much drek that never should have been finished is making its way into ink and e-Ink these days.
Hi Larry,
Thanks for stopping by. I like what you have to say, especially: “the pursuit of perfection is to dwell in perpetual purgatory” and “knowing when to give up is a necessary piece of effective perseverance.” Those are both quotable. You may want to come up with your own list of rules!
In the meantime, may we both rise above the drek forever and always.
Another great comment from an email subscriber:
“Hi Susan,
I particularly like, “finish what you start”. My parents instilled this in me at a very early age. You can’t read on to the next chapter until you’ve read the previous one. Well, not to make any sense of it anyway. This philosophy is also applied in monastic and cloistered life. The methodical adherence to completing one task before moving on to the next. I am arriving at the end of a chapter in my personal life right now, and I can hardly wait to do so, because I know that the new path before me will be fresh and clear. The most amazing part is, that it’s always happening in this very instant. We are never aware of the before or after. I do so enjoy your blogs.
sincerely,
Trélys”
John Grabowski’s 8 Rules of Writing:
1) It always comes to you in the shower.
2) Just as you get the chapter perfect, MS Word will crash.
3) You’ll be working on something impossibly unique like the story of a blind Laotian card-player who meets up with a street-smart girl who turns out to be his long-lost daughter and who he manages to send to college with his winnings only to find that Jonathan Franzen is just coming out with the same thing.
4) When you’re working on a vampire story, wizards are hot. When you think of a wizard story, it’s vampires.
5) You’ll realize on the second-to-last-page it should have been in the third person, not the first.
6) You’ll notice one day your curly quotes are curling the wrong way.
7) The bookstore you’ve already dreamed of seeing your work in the window of will go out of business before you finish your novel.
8) Some idiot kid will write fan-fiction with cliched phrases and mismatched verb tenses and sell 80 trillion copies while you’re in revision.
John,
This list is brilliant! You must share it on your blog. (Click on the link by his name, folks.) Or I will save it here until you get famous and tell people I knew you when…. Very funny stuff. I can relate totally!