The First Million Words

The First Million Words

When I first started to write, someone told me that a new writer has to write something like a million words of rubbish before they produce anything of value. Personally, I don t think it s true and it can work both ways: sometimes you re inspired and the book or article works other times something doesn t click, and no matter what you do, it never quite gels.

People are disproving this statement every day, but I would argue that there is some credence to this theory. There are some natural writers who produce an awe-inspiring epic, or a page-turner that stays on the best seller list for months, with their first offering but these are rare and usually when you dig deeper these authors have served their apprenticeship elsewhere. Usually they ve worked as journalists or spent years in the publishing business or beavered away at their tome until it was as near perfect as they could make it.

I believe that for the majority it does take time to become proficient.

The first book I wrote is still in its box and it s there for a reason, though it definitely improved as the word count increased. When I finally finished the book, I d written over 250,000 words, most of which were atrocious but at least I was a quarter of the way to my first million.

To help me improve as a writer I started writing short stories and joined the Writers Bureau. I did the Comprehensive Writing Course and through it was introduced to various forms of writing I d never contemplated before. It was a revelation and I learnt so much from doing the course.

Feeling more confident I wrote another book and then another and before too long I had two Historical Fantasy series on the go and some science fiction as well. Spurred on by success I ignored the unhelpful notion about your first million words and declined an offer from a publisher and set up my own publishing company.

There s no question I ve improved as a writer and my new books reflect that, but it didn t happen once I reached a million words. It took time and practice.

Learning to write for different genres as part of the Comprehensive Writing Course really helped. I had to research tasks and write for platforms I d never considered before and yet I really enjoyed it and grew from completing these tasks.

Learning to write takes time and effort for most people. It doesn t come naturally to the majority of us but there are things you can do to improve your creativity and confidence. Undertaking a writing course is one of them and it will help you write that first million out of the water.

How fast do you write?

There is a belief amongst some authors that writers should take time to pore over their work and keep editing it until it s word perfect. I ve seen some authors forums become quite heated when people start comparing how much they each write in a day.

First off, everyone is different and has their own approach to writing, either fretting over every word to ensure each sentence is as well constructed as possible before moving on or letting the ideas fall out of their heads onto the blank screen without thinking any further ahead than the next word. So, I don t think we re fair to ourselves or to others if we compare our own creativity with those around us.

Some people write fast and produce excellent work that doesn t need editing. I remember reading about an author who would sit at his typewriter and write complete books in front of an audience, tearing out the sheets as he finished them so his fans could read his latest epic page by page, as he produced them. I don t think there are many out there who could match such feats, but there s nothing wrong in writing quickly. It s only recently, in the last hundred years or so, that the notion that time means quality has been the norm. Many of the classics were written quickly, most of Charles Dickens masterpieces were released in monthly or even weekly instalments, so he had to write quickly.

Until recently I could regularly write over ten thousand words a day and sometimes if I stayed up into the early hours I could churn out over twelve thousand. When I was on that type of roll, I would break Word on my computer as the system wouldn t be able to cope with the number of mistakes and all the red underlining would disappear.

But this level of output depended very much on what I was writing, how I felt and what was going on around me. It also took over my life, and left very little room for anything else.

Last year my approach changed and my level of output decreased as a result. I suddenly became fastidious about the mistakes on the page and wouldn t move on to the next paragraph unless I was happy with the one, I d been working on. I even started editing the chapters as soon as I d finished, which was very unlike me.

There is no set rule about how quickly you or anyone else should write. Some prefer to polish each word, while others let the words flood out and edit them later. The same goes for editing, there are no hard or fast rules, simply do what you feel like and what works for you and try not to be frustrated or concerned if your style changes.

For me writing is a personal thing, if something doesn t quite gel then the words won t flow.

Editing an underrated pleasure.

Hands up if you like editing? It s not a very popular aspect of the writing process but it s a necessary one and something you become better at it with practice.

There tends to be two main camps when it comes to the approach writers take. The first is to edit step by step as you go and then finally pore over your creation until you end up completely rewriting it. I know a few people in this category and they do produce some well polished pieces of art that require very little proofreading.

I ve tried this approach but I m too impatient I simply want to get on with the story, get it written then to go back and indulge myself in the editing process.

Yes, I did say indulge, because I love editing. Not the first time I do it, when I go back and correct my most obvious mistakes, that bit is a chore. No, the part I love is when I go back to a story after leaving it for a few months before it goes off to my wonderfully patient copyeditor. I really enjoy immersing myself in the story again, picking up the slight flaws and correcting them. I like having that understanding of the story and complete overview that helps me to pick up on mistakes and inconsistencies.

At the moment my editing process is quite simple, though it s liable to change depending on the availability of my husband as my first reader. Once I finish the story I go back and edit each chapter one by one for the most obvious mistakes. Sometimes, if the book has taken a long time to write with lots of breaks, I ll have done this already. Once I m happy with my efforts, my long-suffering spouse will read it and then the story disappears for several months.

At a later date, I ll carefully edit the whole book again chapter by chapter before sending it for copy editing. When it returns, I always carry out the recommendations suggested and then it s ready for proof reading.

But I don t believe you can ever really proof a book enough. You can over edit in my opinion, but even in traditionally published books you still find the typos and they have whole teams scrutinizing them.

So, my advice would be to leave the article or story for as long as you can and then go back and read it. Better still print it out so you can write on it, or if you can bear to, read it out loud that s always interesting.

Honestly, editing and proofreading can be very satisfying. You wrote this, this is your work. That s quite an achievement.

Now I d better follow my own advice before letting anyone else see this.