What Nora Roberts can Teach You About Writing
Jun 25th, 2009 by Carlos
The latest New Yorker has a profile on romance writer Nora Roberts—turns out she’s one of the most prolific writers around. She also gets paid a LOT to do what she does. I don’t read romance novels and I have no interest in reading any of her books, but one thing in the profile stood out to me. She was talking about not ever quitting on a story.
I will beat it. I will wrestle it to the ground. It will not defeat me.
I love this attitude. I have so many stories and ideas for stories just languishing in some folder under my desk because I’ve fallen out of love with them. They”re old and don’t feel exciting anymore, so I just file them away and tell myself it’s the ideas that aren’t good enough.
But really it’s me that isn’t trying hard enough.
What I need to do is take a page out of Nora Roberts’ playbook and take these stories as challenges. Make them work. Make them good. Wrestle them to the ground until they tap out.
And that, my friend, is another of those things that brings me to a mental standstill. I don’t know whether to take on the bit of confidence and hope that comes of that quotation…or to just let it lie there, as it probably won’t help me very much.
To give a brief description: I am one of those buggerish people who have a virtually nonexistent sense of self-efficacy. On the one hand, all my life, I’ve been trying to scrap together confidence–in the form of quotations, and heroes (the writing sort, like Gaiman and if she counts, then Amanda Palmer), and nice little compliments. On the other hand, none of it seems to push me much farther than where I am now.
Is confidence a natural thing? Can I learn it? Is it possible for a quite-literally hopeless person to feel hopeful, if only temporarily–because of someone else’s great ability to tackle matters and think confidently?
It’d be nice to get a reply, if you’ve the time.
Thanks for sharing, though. It makes me question…again…and again…
I’m no pro, but my advice? Just keep writing. Write as much as you can. When you think you’re done, write some more. Then start showing it to someone you trust. See what they think. Either way, you’ll look back on the earlier stuff you wrote and you’ll see an improvement. Can’t guarantee it’ll be any good, but it’ll certainly be better. Good luck.