in front of you. The experience of writing everything down can
change what you thought you were doing in profound ways.z $QRWKHUJRRGSUDFWLFHLVWRZULWH\RXU¿UVWGUDIWDVTXLFNO\DVSRVVLEOH
The time for the careful calibration of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs
comes later. To begin with, you don’t want to worry too much about
pacing, about what works and what doesn’t, or even about consistency.
Keep in mind the motto of the songwriter and performer Nick Lowe:
“Bash it out now and tart it up later.”
o Not only will speed help you get as many ideas on the page
as you can, some of that energy may well survive into the
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o In an interview in 7KH New York Times, the mystery writer
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“I have always felt that the books I have written fastest have
been my best—because I caught an unstoppable momentum in
the writing.”z 7KHVXJJHVWLRQWKDW\RXZULWHDORQJ¿UVWGUDIWTXLFNO\FDQDSSO\WRDQ\
writer, at every level of experience, but it may be especially true for
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writing courses can be helpful, but in the end, you learn how to write
a book by writing one. You learn by trial and error, and you give
yourself the most scope for that process to be fruitful if you write an
expansive, baggy, inconsistent, very likely unpublishable, and maybe
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Evolution of the Writing Process
z During the heyday of the novel in the 19th century, it was probably
uncommon for a writer to compose several complete drafts of a novel
before publishing it because many novels at the time were published
as serials. These sections of novels appeared in weekly or monthly
installments in newspapers or magazines over the course of a year or two.
o Charles Dickens is especially famous for having written his
novels in installments, sometimes working only two weeks
ahead of publication. He started writing 'DYLG&RSSHU¿HOG,