I talked openly about all aspects of my writing life, from the process to publishing. What I want to share here is the level I believe an intentional practice of a playful writing exercise for my career .
Playful is not what I have in the door. I wrote my first two books in an outdated way, which could be best described by interpreting the old saying of the Fowler gene, did you know?
I stared at an empty screen until the blood drops formed on my forehead.
Ha ha, no real blood is possible, but you have an idea. In my memory, those years were a vague fog, with my wish to do this to overcome the temptation every day to imagine it, and my main motivation was a one. The incredible disgust at yourself because I don't do it. It must be more painful when not writing rather than writing. I hate it is what it's lost, but I went there. After more than 30 years, I didn't want much to become a writer, I completed my first novel. It has received a number of offers and is sold quite nicely to a large publisher 5, along with its sequel, also a traditional forehead traditional book (even more than that, as usual with The second books). But:
My feet! Already in! Door!
It's just not very safe, because it turned out. That Big-5 publisher ignored the public informing that my books existed (honestly, they had a job) and they did not become the phenomenon I have seen in foresee in my imagination. The sequel to never even appeared in the paper, and it was a small part of my heart that I would never regain it. It was an inevitable premiere. Those books still have their cheers in the world (and I love you so much, a lot), but more often, readers think my fourth book is my first book. Because of my fourth book? My fourth book is a dream.
The daughter of smoke & bone is auctioned (for another large publisher 5) for an amount of money jumping and reducing speed. Money to buy a house. Money changes life. I have learned that journalists are something that publishers have, and marketing departments. Who knows?! Within a year, all my dreams have come true, along with others that I don't know how to dream. The parties are launched by theme, book tours in some countries, media, foreign version, fans art, works. A moment later, the tattoo, pet and baby's baby were named after the characters, the best -selling list, international book festival, especially luxurious version, etc.
(This is part of my foreign version collection.)
Experience is the night and day from my first book agreement, but the truth is important : the difference begins long before it sells. They were woven into its roots from the earliest start, and even before, when it was not sparkling in my eyes. Because I didn't write it how I wrote the first two people. The daughter of smoke & bone is not a book of blood on the forehead. Not my third book, paving the way for it (I will explain for a minute). There is no need for disgusting motivation. Are they happy?
(Waiting for. Write can be fun?!)
(Yes! It can!)
Certainly, there was a struggle. My brain produces it: The struggle for a small series, only the best organic components. A large proportion of my creative energy is devoted to my brain out of the maze of its own invention. (Oh, Brain.) But with these books, the maze took me to great places. The struggle is secondary, often absent completely, and I began to experience, for the first time, the countries grace the other writers said and I suspected really existed. You know: When the characters, take over. When the story is told. When the words seem to come, through you, not from you. When you forget you even write and lose yourself in the flow. These things have never happened to me before, and now they have done (not always, unreliable, but they have happened) and it makes the text not only happier but also better . Cooling. Weirer. Deeper. Honest. And it changed my life.
So what happened? I am very happy that you asked!
First, it not only happens. I did that happened, and I emphasized that this was not myself clapping my back and saying: You can do it. If your handkerchief budget through the roof from wiping your blood forehead, and you think people are lying to make you feel bad when they say that their characters have taken over, And you want to write, but also have to write? Change is possible.
This is what I did, returned in 2006, less imagined about its impact:
I have cultivated an unmistakable writing exercise, building a small community around it and learning how to play .
Time wise, I sold that first novel and was waiting for my first editor. I had a sequel to write but I couldn't face it. I was mentally exhausted (bleeding from the forehead was tired), and, while waiting for feedback, I didn't know how much it could change. For two years I wrote that book, I didn't write anything else, and I wanted. I desire to be more fulfilled, and I aspire to enjoy it.
Those are my goals:
- Write more.
- Enjoy it more.
This is in the golden blog of Mid-Lister, and I had a blog. It was a very different time on social media, before the short -form platforms took over. Everyone commented in a generous way, it was very personal and community formed - all that happened on IG and Twitter, but it was different: deeper and more intimate. . The website with a blog friend, I had a community ready to jump in and play with me. I created a habit of spending Sunday morning to write these pieces and sometimes I will go all day.
I want to be clear that my hope is modest: Write more. Enjoy it more. That's it. There is no voice at the back of my head whispering, playing your cards right away and this can lead to books that will change your life. If already, that will kill it. Everything happens is a beautiful surprise, and looking back from here, I can see why it works. The two main parts of the article writing exercises are not the orientation of this goal are:
- One practitioner : also known as a habit formation.
When you do something often over a period of time, you change your brain, regenerate nerve cells into new nerve paths - like specialized highways - help behavior easily And more natural. As a struggle to start, so as not to overthrow, not to be bogged down in the modified loops, the simple neuroscience of the habit makes me more and more easily accessing an creative space more effectively. . I learned to trust the process, relax and play.
- I am not oriented : This is very important to me: that I started without expectations, in a pure discovery spirit.
Have you ever dreamed of a story and was very excited to start writing it just to find, when you do, that what you really are building a word at a time, so the whole experience feels like it is like Failure instead of creativity?
ARE NOT? Um, yes, I don't.
Ha ha, really, I have. The biggest source in my struggle is perfection. And not, like, the perfection of the cute Muslims that you are modest, but is the perfectism of perfection, nothing-not controlled, uncontrolled, promoted a round The disaster of endless rewriting. It is really difficult to write through this brain music, and many of the vague fog of the struggle, the end of my first novel was granted to continue to continue .
But what I learned from writing promptly is my perfection that is difficult to tell me that I will be short of it if I have no goal to lack . You can't get lost if you don't care where you will go and you can't fail if you don't care what you're doing! Ha. It is a simple hack, but I am very miraculous when approaching Trang with a simple word or phrase, without expectations and no portraits with a gold -plated frame of the book to pursue frustration not not. avoid.
Quite a lot immediately, I started playing. The results are very interesting, surprisingly and alive-the weak are fragments, but some are almost stories. Quite a lot of all of them feel like the doorway I can choose to open or not, with the whole world sparkling only vision. Great! What happens when you start writing! I believe that I can sit down with a notebook, a pen and a reminder, and, in a paragraph, caught up in a scene or situation will never exist and that makes me drunk. . All without a drop of blood. Win!
I have combined other exercises into practice, my imagination developed and my relationship with my own creativity was improved massively. In a few months, I expanded some works quickly into short stories. Each person feels like a gift from his dream. A person was published in a collection, my first! Some others are suitable for a loose kiss topic, and I think about sending them to magazines.
They may be a book, my husband said.
And they became a book - my third. It was sold to another major publisher, my husband illustrated it (it was great), it was chosen for a reputable Buzz Buzz control panel at the book exhibition, and received good attention . And then ...
.
A few weeks after my daughter was born, my husband interrupted me to whisper, mysterious, is it the national book platform? "On the phone. I turned off the water and received a call, drip, I didn't know what it was. Well, that book-a trio of stories inspired by quickly I wrote for fun, feeling Like gifts from dreams-to be listed for the national book award.
That's what I want to say about it paving the way for my fourth book and all the next glory. Being on the list of national book awards without selling books, but it made the editors aware of me at the time I was writing my next book, and created a premise for the auction change. Live there.
This is going on long, so I will save the details of the daughter of smoke & bones for my next article. It is also the fruit of writing exercises, although in a different way, less directly and surprisingly making a debate even better to play. I could not emphasize that the priority decision in writing was beyond my craziest dreams and completely responsible for my career.
Xo
[This is a short cut version of a longer article on my Patreon , where there are many writing, publishing and processes.]
Laini Taylor is the best -selling author of the New York Times and the Sunday of the daughter of the trio of smoke and bones , The Strange The Dreamer Duology and other books. She was translated more than thirty languages, made a list of national book awards and won a honor of Printz. You can find more about writing, as well as a community of warm and dynamic writers at all stages, at Patreon and her Discord, where she meets the members on Zoom every week. .