A Word with Doug Wilhelm

Over the weekend I got this question via email from a middle schooler at Magnolia Science Academy in San Diego, California:

Do you have any advice for a new author? Because I’m writing a book (I know, I’m a kid, but I’m a pretty good writer).

Here’s my response:

1. Keep a notebook. This can be any type of notebook, big or small, plain or fancy, but it should be separate from your regular school notebooks. You can carry this writer’s notebook everywhere, or lock it up in your room at home to stay private — but try to write in it every day. Some writers just use their notebooks to jot down observations and ideas. Others keep a “freewriting” time when they write anything, really, in their notebook for, say, ten minutes, or to fill three pages. I suggest that you take the second approach mainly. If you make time, even just ten minutes, to write in your notebook each day, you’ll start to develop a relationship with it; and the more you have that, the more you’ll have a relationship with writing. Most writers’ notebooks are the place where their ideas first hatch.

At first, or before too long, writing in your notebook will start to seem like a chore, yet another thing you’re supposed to do. If you keep doing it anyway, you’ll start to look forward to spending time with it. Then your writer’s notebook can become a friend in your life — a friend for your life. But you have to give it your time and energy, especially after the first excitement of having it and writing in it start to flag. Push through that, and you’ll begin to build something real.

2. If you have a writing project you want to complete, like a story, write on it a bit every day at the same time if you can. If you miss a day, that’s okay, but do your best to write every day that you can. You may only have half an hour, say before dinner or before bed — but if you come back to your writing at this time every day, before long you will realize that you’ve really started to accomplish something. Don’t wait and think you need a whole weekend or a week to write. Instead, make it a part of your everyday life. Writing at the same time every day lets the mysterious inner rhythms of creative work start to develop and prepare to help you, each time you come to your project.

3. If you’ve written something you think may be promising or possibly good, don’t decide you’re done at that point — because that’s almost always just the beginning. Ask someone you trust for their feedback, and listen to what they say. Try to read your own work — this is very important! — as if you were coming to it for the first time. Be honest with yourself: does what you’ve written work as well as it possibly could? If you can then see how to make your work better, take a deep breath, be grateful for the insight and the ideas, and start working on the next draft.

Understand that writing is always a process. If you think, “I have to be done with this,” then you won’t be able to write well. If you can always be trying to learn how to improve your work — if you can always be open to the process, no matter whether it takes you through two drafts or ten — then you have a chance to do good work. And that’s all that any of us ever have: the chance to do good work. The more you do it, the more you’ll learn to trust the creative process, give it your best energy and be open to what it can show you.

If you want to try to get something published, there are some very good outlets for young writers. Check out these links (they’re also at right, under Blogroll): teenink and my YA author friend Laura Williams McCaffrey’s resources for young writers.

Good luck … keep a notebook … and write for fun! The more you enjoy doing it, the more you’ll keep doing it. Dreaming of publishing a book or getting famous probably won’t keep you going for all that long. What can keep you going as a writer — and all writers have to learn how to keep going — is building a real relationship with your writing, and learning to enjoy it in your life.