Welcome to my new series, Inspiration Fridays! In this series, I take a quote from a featured book and discuss it. Today, I’m talking about this quote from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg:
“Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer. One neat truth about writing cannot answer it all. There are many truths.”
On this blog, I usually write from the perspective of an editor. But I’m also a writer. I write middle grade fiction and occasionally short stories and poetry. I haven’t published anything yet—partially because I’ve been spending the bulk of my energy on developing my editing skills and portfolio and partially because I haven’t yet decided which publishing route is truly the best for me. We live in a glorious age of options.
But allow me to tell you the story of my first manuscript.
When I wrote my first book in 2017, I had no idea what I was doing. After writing a few very bad first chapters, I joined a local writer’s group and quickly learned things I’d never heard before—things like “show, don’t tell,” and “don’t use adverbs.”
I ended up writing my first draft quickly, outpacing what my critique group could keep up with. I felt so proud about my accomplishment—I set out to write a book, and I finished it! Yay!
I quickly sent it out to beta readers, who gave me positive feedback. After another draft or two, I decided I was ready to query. (*Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.)
I jumped in with both feet, querying between fifteen and twenty agents during my first round alone. I attended a big conference in my area and pitched to agents. I got positive feedback and some requests, which made me feel like the Bomb-Dot-Com (do people say that anymore?). I even got a “revise and resubmit” request from an agent. But my skills weren't up to par yet, so nothing happened.
I hired an editor to perform a manuscript review. She gave me lots of constructive feedback, and she also told me the book was worth continuing to work on. After initial rejoicing, I made it partway through a redraft of the manuscript, but then I lost steam. I knew it needed to be fixed, but I didn’t yet know how to actually do the fixing. So I started a new book and I moved on.
Fast forward a few years later, I felt the manuscript calling to me again. I’d grown in leaps and bounds as a writer since I’d last picked it up, and I now saw big issues I hadn’t known enough to see before. So I overhauled it. Then I attended an intensive workshop, where I got great feedback and a lot of encouragement from agents and other writers on my opening chapters. Again, I felt like I owned the world. My book was awesome and I was going to get it published! I put it through a few more drafts and then I sent it out for queries once again.
But again, no dice. I hired another editor to review my query package. After letting it rest again for a year, I picked it up, put it through two more rounds of major improvements, and then queried it once again.
Nothing. I did get a couple of personalized rejections this time, which I was really excited about, but nothing more than that. So I shelved it again and wrote a different book instead.
Between conferences and editors and craft books, I’ve spent a decent amount of money on this one manuscript. I’ve also spent quite a bit of time—literal years of my life at this point.
I love this book, but a large part of me is currently debating whether its rightful place is really just in a Google Drive folder.
You could argue that the time and money I’ve spent on this little homeless book has been wasted. But I think Natalie Goldberg would argue differently. “Learning to write is not a linear process. There is no logical A-to-B-to-C way to become a good writer.”
No matter our path, we all learn through trial and error, through success and failure, through frustration and curiosity, through whatever opportunities come our way.
When it comes to learning to develop and use our writing skills, there is no formula. The process looks different for everyone. Some people discover their voice through college writing courses, and others discover it as they are in the middle of a career in an entirely different field. Some improve their writing by working with a team of trusted critique partners and hired book coaches and editors, and others improve under the tutelage of one close, dedicated mentor. Some find they write best by Plotting and others by Pantsing, and still others find they prefer a combo of the two.
No matter our path, we all learn through trial and error, through success and failure, through frustration and curiosity, through whatever opportunities come our way.
As I’ve taken this very roundabout path of improving and strengthening my first manuscript, I have learned so much about good writing along the way. This book is how I first learned about plot structure, pacing, subplots, themes, tension, dialogue. This book is how I learned to create characters that feel alive. I learned it one draft, one mistake, one rejection, one conference, one edit, and one small success at a time.
In an indirect way, this book is also how I learned that I love editing, that I could become good at it, and that I could even make it my livelihood. As I exchanged work with my critique partners and beta readers and started learning the art of giving feedback, I realized that I had just as much fun analyzing other writer’s works as I had writing my own. Because of this first book, I went back to school with the goal of learning enough to start a freelance editing business.
No effort is wasted. No writing is wasted. No learning is wasted.
My journey from complete novice to confident writer through writing and rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting) this book has been anything but straightforward. In fact, it’s been downright messy. And I’m willing to bet that your process of writing already has been—or will be—downright messy, too, and that your mess looks entirely different from my mess.
Maybe you have a pile of half-finished manuscripts sitting on your computer because you keep getting stuck in the murky middle.
Maybe you thought you were a romance writer, but then discovered you actually love writing picture books or horror or poetry.
Maybe you self-published a book and then realized it needed more work, so you took it down, revised it, and republished it.
Maybe you got an agent for your book, but then the agent couldn’t sell it, so they dropped you.
Goldberg’s point is that no effort is wasted. No writing is wasted. No learning is wasted.
Even if someone tells you your manuscript stinks and you realize they’re right, or you work for months on something and then delete or abandon it, or you pitch a finished work to agents and don’t get a single manuscript request, or you successfully publish something and then realize years later that it doesn’t reflect your identity as a writer anymore. It’s not wasted.
It’s all part of your unique writing journey as you learn to maximize your writing and storytelling potential.
To me, this is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
What do you think of Goldberg's ideas about learning to write? What has your writing journey been like? What setbacks have led you to something better? I’d love to hear your story!
Come back next week for more musings inspired by Writing Down the Bones! Happy writing!