I’m ruthless about my writing. I can immediately tell if what I’m writing is really, really good.
If I don’t get that feeling, my assumption is that it’s pretty bad.
I know I’m a good writer. I know I write novels that will sell, and sell big once I deem them publish ready (we’re getting there).
It may seem I’m being unnecessarily harsh with my writing. But it has the benefit of making a novel a page turner. I know if I get more caught up in reading my novel than editing it, I’m either 1). tired 2). Lazy or 3). It’s really good.
I want for my novels to affect the reader. I want them to keep people awake at night, lying to themselves about “Just let me finish this scene, and I’ll go to sleep”.
I can recall a day where I skipped going to college because it was a rainy, lie in bed and read kind of day – and I had a book about a man who injected reptilian cells into his body, and they were transforming him slowly into an animal. I read that whole book in two days. I don’t remember if it was good – I only read it the once – but I pretty much started it one day and finished it the next.
That’s what I want people to do. I want my books to be like Heinlein, where you read them over and over again. Tolkien, Heinlein and Tom Clancy all had the “Read this book over and over again” impact on me. That’s the kind of books I want to write. Not the “Read this and give it to a friend” kind of book, but the soup-stains-on-the-pages kind of book because you’re on your sixteenth read through (I’ve read some books that many times).
So here it is. Be ruthless about your writing.
The other readers of my blog are book readers, people who obsess about finding a good book to read. They want, need, deserve the kinds of books that keep them up at night, that they would rather turn off the TV and curl up on the bed or the sofa with.
Yes, you can write the scene you’ve got even better. Rewrites are really where we write the book.
Be ruthless about your writing.
