Manual For Fiction Writers by Block, Lawrence (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

maybe you wouldn't finish it. There's no law that says you have to.

Please understand that I'm not advocating abandoning a novel halfway through. I've done that far too often myself, and it's not something I've ever managed to feel good about. But you do have every right in the world to give up on a book if it's just not working, or if you simply discover that writing novels is not for you. As much as we'd all prefer to pretend our calling is a noble one, it's salutary to bear in mind that the last thing this poor old planet needs is another book. The only reason to write anything is because it's something you want to do, and if that ceases to be the case you're entirely free to do something else instead.

You know, it strikes me that we may all of us be too caught up in the desire to finish our work. That has to be our aim, obviously, but it's easy to overemphasize that aspect of writing.

I do this myself. I became a writer because I thought I'd enjoy the process of literary creation, and in no time at all this urge transformed itself into an obsession with getting manuscripts finished and seeing them in print.

I suspect the business of writing a novel becomes less a source of anxiety and more a source of pleasure if we learn to concern ourselves more with the writing process and less with the presumptive end product. The writer who does each day's work as it comes along, enjoying it as activity and not merely enduring it as a means to an end, is going to have a better time of things. I suspect, too, he'll wind up producing a better piece of writing for his efforts; his work won't suffer for having been rushed, whipped like a poor horse to the finish line.

All that's required here is an attitudinal change. And if you manage it, I hope you'll tell me how?I have a lot of trouble in this area, yearning less to write than to have written.

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You've got me convinced. I'm going to sit down and write a novel. After all, short stuff isn't really significant, is it?

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It isn't, huh? Who says?

I'll grant that commercial significance singles out the novel, and that long novels are automatically considered to be of more importance than short novels, and sell better. And I won't deny that your neighbors will take you more seriously if you tell them you've written a novel. (Of course if that's the main concern, just go and tell them. You don't have to write anything. Just lie a little. Don't worry?they won't beg to read the manuscript.)

But as far as intrinsic merit is concerned, length is hardly a factor. You've probably heard of the writer who apologized for having written a long letter, explaining that he didn't have the time to make it shorter. And you may have read Faulkner's comment that every short-story writer is a failed poet, and every novelist a failed short-story writer.

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Well, now you've got me confused again. Maybe I'll write a novel, maybe I'll stick to short stories. One thing I know, though, and that's that I'm not going to accomplish anything sitting on my duff. I'm going straight to the typewriter. No more putting things off.

Congratulations. But I hope you'll take time to read Chapter 15. The title's Creative Procrastination.

CHAPTER 6

Sunday Writers

A COUPLE of weeks ago a friend of mine was nice enough to compliment me on something he'd read in a recent column. While I was basking in the glow, he said, It must bother you, huh? Sort of like taking money under false pretenses.

I asked what he meant.

Well, here you are writing this column, he said, and you know full well that the vast majority of your readers are never going to write anything publishable, and you're in there every month telling them how to improve their technique. Hell, you're just encouraging 'em in their folly.

I was really annoyed with him, not least because he was calling my attention to doubts I'd had myself. I once turned down an opportunity to teach writing in an adult education program for reasons along the lines of what he'd said. But after my friend and I had gone our separate ways, I gave some further thought to the whole question?and I wound up grateful to him for raising the point.

For one thing, he made me realize the extent to which we're all hung up on publishing what we write. Now that may look painfully obvious at first glance, but when you look at the other forms of creative endeavor you can see the difference.

Every writer I've ever known has written with the hope of eventual publication. Contrast that with all the Sunday painters daubing oil on canvas for their private enjoyment, all the actors whose ambitions have never strayed beyond amateur theatrical presentations, all the folks taking piano lessons without the vaguest dream of a debut at Carnegie Hall. Millions of people snap pictures without hoping to see them published. Millions more make jewelry and throw pots and knit shawls, free altogether from the craving to profit from their craft.

I've known quite a few Sunday painters, including several in my own family. They're quite accomplished and they get enormous satisfaction from what they do. Some exhibit in local shows,