Storytellersunplugged

By Jeff Mariotte

Reading over Brian Keene’s essay from yesterday–although I had already written this last Friday so it’d be ready to go–I realize that the two pieces are very complimentary. Brian outlines a strategy for making a living, but he glosses over the part that I’m going into with greater detail in a line or two. Keene works on two books at a time. How does he do it? I publish 6 books a year, most years. How do I do it?

Read on…

Before I wrote professionally, I used to hear a lot about writers waiting around for inspiration. I even used to think it was a good idea. After all, how could one write a masterpiece if not touched by the muse? Wasn’t that magical spark required to set everything in motion?

Here’s what I’m using for inspiration this week. Our big TV died—this in a household where a significant portion of our income is derived from writing books and comics based on TV shows, a household with multiple parties of different ages, with videogame systems, DVD players, VCRs, etc. My desktop computer is in the shop, and my wife’s is rapidly fading. A relatively new tire on my main vehicle suffered a puncture this week. All the tires on the little truck we just use around the ranch have been sliced by mesquite thorns and need replacing; at the same time, its new battery has died, causing me to suspect alternator problems. My wife’s man vehicle needs a service call, too.

That’s just the unusual stuff. Of course, there are everyday needs as well. Food, gas, health insurance, satellite bills, phone bills…all the daily expenses that pile up in twenty-first century America. Fortunately for us, there’s no mortgage, because we bought the Flying M Ranch with cash, but mortgage or rent is still a major expense for most households.

Ray Bradbury used to advice people who wanted to write not to get married, because they’d just want to spend time with their spouses, and if they had families then the demands on their time would only get worse. Which is true, as far as it goes. But where I beg to differ—much as I love Ray—is that if you get married and have a family, then the bills pile up that much faster, and unless your spouse is wealthy those bills are going to spur you to the keyboard.

Because if you make your living at this uneven, inconsistent game, the more you write, the better. Waiting for inspiration is fine for amateurs who never desire to turn pro, for dilettantes convinced that the Great American Novel lurks inside them, maybe even for those with pro ambitions but little available time to work at it right now.

But if you’re a pro, or you want to be a pro, then waiting for inspiration is pointless. What you need is motivation, and that’s what we’re talking about here. I used to work for a comic book artist who is now, and has been for more than a decade, one of the most popular and successful comic artists in the business. But before he was that, he was a student and a would-be comic artist. He spent eight hours a day working at the drawing board, honing his craft, turning out page after page—acting, in other words, as if he was already a professional, even though no one was paying him for the work he was doing. He’s since been repaid for his efforts, many times over.

If you can get paid, so much the better. But if you want to be a writer, what you’ve gotta do is write. Your butt needs to be in a chair and your hands need to be on a keyboard, a pencil, or some other instrument that makes marks on paper. Kevin J. Anderson dictates his books while hiking and climbing mountains, and Barbara Cartland used to lay on a settee, petting her poodle, and dictate to a secretary, but you can bet that neither of them began their careers that way, and they are the rare exceptions, not the rule.

Inspiration happens when you make it happen. The act of writing stirs emotion and idea into a mix that flows onto the page. If you’re really a writer you don’t lack for things to write about, and the effort you’re putting in—at the desk, in the shower, behind the wheel, churning over in your mind what you’ve already put down and what’s to come—enables you to twist and combine and re-imagine the elements at your disposal into the story you need to tell.

The more you write, the more you write. Maybe it sounds redundant, but it’s also true. Instead of sniffing roses and watching clouds and waiting for the Muse to favor you with one of her little arrows, or however she does it, take a look at that stack of bills. A good, long look. Then sit your ass down in the chair.

And write.