On My Own
By Juliet Marillier | June 3, 2010 |
For the three years it took me to write my first novel, and for the four years or so following, while I made the transition from newbie to full-time established writer, I don’t think I opened a single book on the craft of writing or visited a single craft-oriented website. It was only once people started asking ME for writing advice that I realised delving into resources of that kind might be useful. Now I do it fairly often. It’s great to read other writers’ tips for success and to share their struggles with all things writing-related, from technical elements to ergonomics to the heart-and-soul matters of the profession.
It never occurred to me to seek out the advice and opinions of experienced writers during my journey to initial publication. I’ve never studied creative writing and, until the last few years, did not belong to a critique group or attend events at our local writers’ centres, which routinely run writers’ groups, workshops and talks by visiting authors. Why didn’t I feel the need for this, and how did I manage without it?
Education: I may not have studied creative writing, but my education gave me some essential foundations for a novelist. I’m of a generation that learned spelling, grammar and syntax as part of the primary school curriculum. At high school we studied classic literary texts – a Shakespeare play each year, novels by Dickens, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, poetry, journalism and essays. We also looked at works by our local New Zealand writers such as Janet Frame and Katherine Mansfield. At university I studied music (I’ve written elsewhere about how useful this was in developing my awareness of balance and flow in writing) and foreign languages (these give you an insight into the vocabulary and structure of English, and open up your cultural horizons – especially handy for a historical fantasy writer.)
Reading: The best preparation for being a writer is being a reader. I read avidly from the time when someone realised I was not educationally slow, just severely short-sighted. That first pair of glasses opened new worlds for me. I have always read quite broadly, and when I started to write seriously, all those years of absorbing other people’s great (and sometimes not so great) style meant I had an intuitive grasp of what to do and what not to do in my own writing.
Life experience: Seems a bit obvious, but for me this had to come before the writing. I showed promise as a writer when young, but other things got in the way and I did not come back to it until my late forties. By that time I had started to grow up, I had made a lot of major mistakes in my life and learned from them, and I was becoming a wiser person as a result. It was only then that I was ready to write novels and able to set down a story that would resonate with readers.
Natural reticence; low self-esteem: I have to include these, because they were instrumental in my decision to show my first manuscript to only one person (my then-teenage daughter) before I sent it to a publishing house as an unsolicited manuscript. While I thought the ms was fairly good, I was not prepared to let friends, relations or local experts read it and give feedback that might be shatteringly negative, or worse, complimentary but insincere. Coming off an adverse period in my personal life, I simply wasn’t armoured against adverse criticism. If someone had to deliver the news that my writing stank, I thought, best that the person be a professional, someone unknown to me, whom I would not have to face afterwards! Most fortunately, the publisher/editor in question liked the manuscript, made an offer, and set me on my way as a professional writer.
What is to be learned from all this? I guess I can distil it down to a few pieces of good advice:
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1. You want to be a writer? Read, read, read. Learn via the absorption method!
2. To become effective as a writer, and as a person, first learn to love yourself. Accept yourself with all your strengths and weaknesses, your flaws and talents. From that strong foundation, you can reach out to others and let your creativity take flight.
3. It’s possible to do it on your own, provided you have some basic writing tools and a workmanlike attitude. Take advice – from books, from blogs, from writers’ group buddies – if you think you need it, but don’t feel you must follow all advice. An opinion is just that, an opinion. It depends a bit on who is offering the feedback. If it’s a respected editor who’s deciding whether to take your project, it could pay to take heed!
Photo credit:
© Rjmiguel | Dreamstime.com
Juliet Marillier has written twenty-four novels for adults and young adults and two collections of short fiction. Her works of historical fantasy have been published around the world and have won numerous awards. Juliet’s most recent series was Warrior Bards, of which the third and final book, A Song of Flight, was published in 2021. Her collection of reimagined fairy tales, Mother Thorn and Other Tales of Courage and Kindness, had its trade release in 2022. Mother Thorn is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings and published by Serenity Press.
Juliet is currently working on a two-book fantasy series. The first book in this duology, The Amber Owl, will be published by New Dawn in February 2025.
When not writing, Juliet looks after a small crew of rescue dogs.
Great article!
I have a whole library of craft books – first, because they’re fun to read, second, because I get hardly any feedback. My family doesn’t speak english well enough to fix grammar and spelling, and they have this endearing but not really extremely constructive habit of finding everything great…
I also read almost a book a day, across all genres. My problem, really, is committing sufficient time to writing… ah well. I’m trying to get that sorted, too.
.-= Tessa Conte´s last blog ..A Suspenseful Scene =-.
If anything, I read far too many books about writing. Deep down, I know I should stop reading these and actually do some writing. But I find the theory and other writers’ perspectives very interesting.
I think the balance between formal education (I studied very similar subjects to you, but replace music with art) and learning through absorption, as you put it, is key. Combined, they really do help the writing process.
Tessa, I think families are not really capable of giving honest feedback on our work. They are too close to us to want to deliver what they see as bad news, even in the form of constructive criticism. Mine are getting better at it with practice!
I totally agree that the best way to become a great writer is to read great writers. I have a few “writing” books and while I have distilled a few gems from them, I’ve never found them as helpful as what you call the “absorption method.” I think it’s because the writing books talk about the bones of writing, but you can’t really teach the heart and the guts.
The second best resources have been a few select websites (like this one) that I check in with regularly.
Excellent advice! You and I are on the same wavelength today.
https://lydiasharp.blogspot.com/2010/06/am-i-writer.html
Before I was writing seriously, I loved writing books. Especially the ones about the writing life and other encouraging stories. Now that I am waist-deep in my novel, I don’t read any writing books. Occasionally, when I get stuck on structure or technical issues, I will turn to a craft book, but I don’t find them that helpful. Other novels – great novels – are what I turn to in order to learn.
.-= Rebecca @ Diary of a Virgin Novelist´s last blog ..Learning to write from the movies =-.
Am I a bad writer to admit I haven’t read a craft book in around a year? Sometimes I need to turn off the noise and get down to the business of writing. Seeing how other writers implement advice is crucial.
Great post, Juliet.
I like that your journey is unorthodox, and I’ll come back to this post when I’m wondering about some of my own circumstances and what I’m making of them. Thanks Juliet!
.-= Tracy Hahn-Burkett´s last blog ..Teaching Your Kids to Lie =-.
When I first started writing, I read every craft-of-writing book I could find — I think I kept hoping I’d find “the secret”, the one thing that would explain everything I needed for this writing path.
I finally realized it was best to read those later, for reference, or if I needed to inspire my brain, things like that. Otherwise I was studying for a test I wasn’t ever going to take!
I also realized, as you said, how much I had absorbed through reading other books. I always had the ability to WRITE, but from reading zillions of books, I learned how to tell a story. And what a fun way to learn!
.-= Donna Cummings´s last blog ..Make My Day =-.
I am beginning to suspect that we shouldn’t ask families for advice. Unless there is an incredibly clear line of communication already regarding proofing work (ie. a history of working together) you are putting the family member in an awkward position. Ask family to provide support in other ways – patience, silence, late night snacks! – and leave critiquing to someone you don’t have to live with!!
Finding sensible honest people to crit work requires time, but when you find good people they’re worth their weight in gold!
I’ve never read any craft b00ks and feeling that, perhaps, at this p0int, I c0uld use s0me advice and t00ls, I f0und y0ur article inspiring and I wanted t0 thanky0u Juliet.
I liked your point about not feeling you need to follow all the advice you get. It definitely requires confidence in yourself and your work.
Great article about the fundamentals, Juliet.
You have focused in on a trio of vital aspects.
Read. Read. Read. This is the mantra I have heard from so many long-published authors, a mantra that I have promoted to others.
Writing has a direct tie-in with an individual’s identity. Finding one’s voice in writing can be that uplifting step so necessary in life.
Writing resources–handbooks, essays, guidebooks are plentiful. Lately, I have returned to a small group of writers for a diverse sounding board. Feedback has been helpful plus it offers a chance to read and listen to other writers.
.-= Patricia Anne McGoldrick´s last blog ..WAVES OF WORDS AND WATER =-.
Great article, Juliet! And I so agree. Stephen King has said, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.” There’s no better preparation for being a writer than reading broadly and avidly. And I found your point about life experience very interesting–and true for me, too, although from the reverse direction. When I first started writing, I was 20 and just hadn’t lived in the world long enough to have a story worth telling. (Not that a 20 year old in general can’t write a great book, I just personally didn’t have what it took). I had to live, become a mother, experience life more before I had anything really worth putting on the page–and that’s when I got the publishing offer.
Nobody knows anything.
Except for Blake Snyder (Save the Cat!). He knew.
.-= Laurence MacNaughton, Author´s last blog ..When unicorn pegasus kittens attack! =-.
Great post! I’m really glad to see that your philosophy somewhat mirrors my own, or what I expect mine to be once I reach the same point in life. I especially agree that reading is the best preparation for writing. If I’m stuck, I’ll ask myself what sort of devices a certain novel used to get around a similar situation. (I don’t copy that situation, of course, but try to learn from the general literary techniques used.) I’ve dabbled with critique groups but not found them too helpful, personally, and find I learn more from looking at craft- and otherwise writing-related sites. Some people have deemed me crazy, lazy, afraid of judgment, etc., for not being all gung-ho on the critique groups, but like you said, you don’t have to follow every piece of advice out there. What works well for one person might not work well for another. (I do have a few trusted people I ask to read my stuff when I need an opinion, though. Just not a formal group anymore.)
.-= Kristin Laughtin´s last blog ..What Lost Can Teach Us About Story-Building (Part II) =-.
“You want to be a writer? Read, read, read.”
My favorite advice ever! Read everything, far and wide, historical and contemporary, smutty and high brow, fiction and non. Soak it up like a sponge.
Great article!
.-= Erika Robuck´s last blog ..Review: The Vanishing Point =-.
[…] just read Writer Unboxed https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2010/06/03/on-my-own and Juliet Marillier assures me that part of being a writer is to read, read, read but its hard to […]
I believe that if you spend all your energy on reading material about the craft of writing, then you have little time or energy to write. I say this is a long time professor of writing at a large state university. If you want to be a writer, then you have to write–not read or talk about writing!
.-= Marilyn Seguin´s last blog ..Settling in at Little Sebago Lake =-.
Interesting range of responses! Marilyn, that’s an important point. One of the pieces of advice I always give aspiring writers (alongside telling them to read widely) is that they should write every day, whether it’s a page in a personal journal, a poem, a story or whatever. That’s a first step towards a writer’s discipline (and learning to finish things is a second.)
It can be a juggling act for those of us who write for a living – the pressure of deadlines makes it increasingly difficult to find time to read for pleasure (and for absorption learning.)
I prefer to read a good novel to be inspired for my own writing than a book on the craft. I’ve learned enough so far to know that not one thing works for everyone. That said, a new method or idea to try coming out of a workshop never hurts.
In my old corporate sales life, I would tell new salespeople that their own pitches would be a compilation of the pitches they heard from the senior sales people and managers finished off with their own personal flair. I think how you write evolves in a similar manner.
.-= Joanne Tombrakos´s last blog ..Are You Lip Syncing Or Living Out Loud? =-.