How to Start (or Keep Writing) a Book
A few tips from an accomplished writer that I'm putting to use
Katherine May, a nature writer and author of such titles as Enchantment, Wintering, and The Electricity of Every Living Thing, recently wrote an issue in her Substack, The Clearing, about how she starts to write a book. Although I am not currently starting anything new (right now I’m more about desperately trying to finish writing any of the books I’ve already started), I thought she had several good practices that anyone might adopt to work on a book, no matter where they are in the process. She lists ten tips and goes into some detail about how they work for her. Here are a few of those ideas that I’m using to help me get to the finish line of a complete first draft.
Make Space, Not Time
May suggests that the process of writing a book requires space, both physically and mentally. Blocking out time to write is fine, but you may also need to write in a different place than where you do other work.
I recently felt like I made a breakthrough when I realized that in order to finally devise a full, working plot for my novel-in-progress, I needed to use an actual, physical corkboard (shown in the photo above) to organize my scenes rather than the digital plotting boards that I’d been using in my writing software. It’s making a big difference. While on a walk this morning, I worked out a difficult scene in my head, then came home to write out the index card for the scene and find the right place for it on the board.
Open a Project Book
May keeps a notebook for each book that she writes so that she can jot down thoughts as they come. She also starts every writing session by writing notes about what she will work on that day. She says, “it prevents hours of staring into space.”
Anything that prevents hours of staring into space sounds like a good idea to me, so I’m going to try this. It definitely beats my current practice of writing notes to myself about the book on random scraps of paper that I only find again long after they can be useful.
Keep It Close to Your Chest/But Also Talk About It
As far as I can tell, nothing can kill your passion for a book you want to write faster than telling someone about it. Most people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the half-formed ideas that writers can get absolutely obsessed about and the looks of kind skepticism and the well-intentioned but dispiriting questions that can result when you talk about an embryonic writing project can have the effect of smothering your baby in its crib. Don’t do it.
On the other hand, you may be lucky enough to have someone in your life who won’t throw cold water on your hottest ideas and who may actually ask insightful questions that can help you flesh out the faint topics and twisted stories that are flickering in your head. When I discussed the subject of my novel with a friend, she went on to relate some background information that opened up an entirely new issue that added depth and pathos to one of my characters. So go ahead and talk about your book to such a person, should you be so fortunate to find him or her, but proceed with caution. Talking too much about your book, even to a good and generous listener, can sap some of the energy away from your writing. Keeping it just in your head and on the page can help to keep the creative fire burning.
Document Absolutely Everything
For her nonfiction books, May uses both Evernote and Pocket to document digital research. She also uses a bibliographic software program called Easybib to keep a list of her references. All that in addition to clearing a shelf for the physical research she accumulates for the project.
I’m going to follow her lead for my next nonfiction book and use bibliographic software. However, I’ve tried and really didn’t like Evernote; I found it was really easy to add notes to it and really difficult to keep track of those notes. I prefer using my writing software to keep track of my digital research. I’ve used Scrivener and I do like it, but I like Dabble even better. Both programs provide a way to keep research notes; I’m just more comfortable with Dabble. And I very much like that my research notes are in the same program (and the same digital binder) I’m writing the text in.
So what practices do you use when you’re starting a book?
A Note to Readers:
You may have noticed that I’ve increased the frequency of Lost in the Weeds this month. While I originally planned for this to be a once-a-month newsletter about my two passions, writing and gardening, I’ve decided to devote more time and space to it, so it will now appear on a biweekly basis, every other Monday. (That’s the plan, anyway.) The focus will still be on writing and gardening, but I’ll alternate the focus back and forth. Some issues will be about writing, others will be about gardening, and occasionally there will be some overlap. Let me know what you think.