The Goal
Here’s the goal: I want to become a published, award-winning, smash-hit novelist.
The problem? It’s hard. Very hard.
Not only that but I’m a shit writer. I would love to imagine I have some sort of talent, any at all but I don’t and that’s precisely what makes this goal so unbelievably unattainable. I won’t ever be an Ottessa Moshfegh, going to an elite MFA program, receiving awards and the dropping a mega-popular bestseller. I’m far more average than all of that.
But I’m going to try anyway and insofar as this attempt is interesting, I’m going to be blogging it here as a sort of log of my journey (hopefully) into the literary establishment.
First things first, though. You need to understand the plan.
I’ve always been fascinated in how people learn. I mean, I am a teacher after all but I’ve always been uniquely interested in how ‘super-performers’ perform at the highest levels of their field. In particular, fields that aren’t built around huge physical advantages like basketball and swimming. I’m thinking about fields that have much more equal starting fields physically, like chess, video games and acting.
As a result, I have a sort of approach that I apply to video games and sports that I really like but its definitely not any kind of proprietary bullshit that I’m trying to shill. It’s largely a simple but systematic procedure that’s worked for me (I can talk about my successes another time since this isn’t the focus of this post).
I start by assessing my current skills, partially because it can be helpful to know my deficiencies but mostly because I like having a baseline to compare growth against.
My next post will be the first few chapters of a novel I had eventually given up on so that you all can see exactly where I am starting at. I wrote the piece about a year ago but its still pretty indicative of my overall level because I honestly haven’t been able to write anything more substantial than 1,000 words (if that) since.
After that is done, I start my ‘research/practice’ phase. Essentially, I consume a humongous amount of practical input in my given field by creating a list of videos/works to consume, reviewing that professional work, and then assessing it in detail. At the same time, I begin practicing a lot, varying between practicing more than reviewing and reviewing more than practicing. The important thing for me is that the quantity of professional data that I’m taking in is large.
What that means is that I’m going to be reading a huge amount of literary journals and books. I have a subscription to Fitzcarraldo that I’m going to renew and I’m currently in the works of getting a few lit mag subscriptions. I’ll probably also get book recommendations from the lit mags which means I won’t have material to run out of.
Finally, I move to a stage that focuses almost exclusively on output.
I will probably reach this stage multiple times through the journey especially with my expected plan. I see myself getting here whenever I know I’m about to reach the ‘next level’ in my writing, whether that be me knowing getting published is only a short jump away or me having figured out some sort of technique or style that took a long time to craft.
Stage 1
The plan is simple. I need a challenging but accomplishable milestone that will also set me at a good pace for the rest of this journey. That’s why I think getting published in a small lit mag will be what I am shooting for.
Sure, it’s not something directly related to publishing novels (especially because it appears that agents and publishers aren’t really concerned with that kind of resume padding) but short stories are, in my eyes, the perfect medium to practice writing. They’re short, usually self-contained, and can be written far more quickly than a novel. In effect, if you write and edit a novel over the course of a year, you’re only getting one opportunity to practice the beginning, middle, ending, character development, and all sorts of other things. Writing 40 short stories in that time means you can practice all that stuff 40 times.
I don’t really have an idea of what mags I’m going to be submitting to but that’s fine because its still rather far away. What I need to do first is establish my baseline (the next post will have those chapters I talked about), read a shit ton of short stories (at least 20 a week. I already have some sample mags coming in the mail), and put my pen to paper (ideally churning out a short every two weeks).
So what can you expect next?
A baseline writing post with a small analysis (if I can get over the cringe)
Some analyses of the works I’m reading to show how I’m approaching learning to write and also to keep me accountable
Write some pieces and then reflect on them here
Let the games begin!