Guest post written by author Justin T. Call
Justin Travis Call is a graduate of Harvard University and the author of Master of Sorrows, Book 1 of the Silent Gods series. In addition to being a novice screenwriter and voice actor, Justin is also the CEO of Broomstick Monkey Games and codesigner of Imperial Harvest and Royal Strawberries. When he isn’t reading or writing books, Justin likes boxing, designing tabletop games, and playing League of Legends. He currently lives in Park City, Utah, with his wife, his two sons, his Great Dane (Pippa) and his Saint Bernard-mastiff (Herbie).
Rule #1: The first draft of anything is bad, so just vomit it out.
Embrace the typos, the corniness, the disconnected thoughts, the lack of imagery. Write crap. You’re smart enough to make it more subtle, more believable, and more awesome later. So worry about that later. If you’re a planner, you should be done planning at this stage (give your architect the day off). If you’re a pantser, you’ll bring your architect in along with your editor . . . at the end of the drafting process. Either way, give your editor and your architect the day off. Don’t edit, polish, revise, criticize, outline, plot, or plan – just write.
Rule #2: There is no magic solution.
There is no device or app that will write your book for you. There is no distraction-free writing tool that will make you focus. No magic drug, pill or energy drink. Worst of all (and perhaps most of all), no one will believe in you more than you believe in yourself. So don’t wait for someone else to validate you. Don’t wait for it to get easier (it won’t). For me, writing often feels like squeezing blood from a stone. But I believe in myself and I know what I am doing, so I just keep squeezing till my hands are bloody. There is no other way to get it done. Pro tip: cutting down on social media consumption helps a lot because it’s usually just a way to procrastinate when you should actually be writing.
Rule #3: Do you.
Everyone works differently, so educate yourself and find what works well for you . . . then do it. Stop chasing ideal scenarios and get the writing done. If you need to write at night when people are sleeping, do it. If you need to write on the bus on your phone on the way to work, do it (anecdote: I wrote 60% of the first draft of my first fantasy novel on an iPhone while riding the bus to and from work each day). If you need to write when your kids are sleeping/eating, do it. If you are a plotter, plot. If you are a pantser, then fly by the seat of those pants. If you’re not sure what your method is, feel free to explore and listen to what works for other people. Test their advice out. Take notes. See what inspires you and results in good writing (but don’t get superstitious about rituals or specifics). Just find a way to get the work done. However you manage that best is what works for you, so do you. Likewise, people are VERY different, so it goes without saying that what works for some people won’t work for you (this goes for finding time to write, writing well, finding an agent, getting published, and pretty much anything else you do in your life). See Rule #2 above and remember that, while there is no magic solution, there is still a way (or multiple ways) for you to achieve your goals. Find that way. Don’t give up. Find it and do it.
Rule #4: Set goals and write them down.
If you don’t have goals or deadlines, you aren’t accountable to anyone. Make yourself accountable, share your goals/deadlines if it helps, and hold yourself to them. If you can’t do that, then you will never know whether you are achieving your goals. For me, word count goals are immensely helpful when I am drafting. When I am revising, it helps to have a date set for finishing my revisions.
Rule #5: Patience and persistence will trump talent.
If you’re not talented, you can use your patience and persistence to educate yourself and become a better writer. You’ll need to be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll need to learn to recognize when you are being given good/bad advice (see Rule #3 above), but if you’re not persistent, you won’t overcome your writer’s block (see Rules #1 and #2), you won’t grow as a writer, and you will give up before you write anything worth reading.
Rule #6: Do it right and don’t settle for less.
If you are unhappy with something, fix it (see Rule #5). Just don’t let it stop you from writing (see Rule #1). Also, success is relative (see Rule #3), so decide what you want – what makes YOU happy – and achieve that goal. For example, if you’re trying to be published by a major publisher, then do it. Don’t settle for anything less; find out how others did it, then see what works for you (see Rule #3 again). This may mean you will need to educate yourself (in fact, this is almost a certainty), so be persistent and get it done (remember, there are no short-cuts). Alternatively, if you are just writing for yourself or your family – that’s great! No shame in that (as long as you admit that is what you really want). It’s inspiring to meet someone that has a clear vision of their goals, no matter how big or small they are. You want to self-publish yourself? That’s great, too! Do you and don’t apologize for it. But don’t do it half-assed or half-way. Educate yourself and do it right (don’t settle for less, don’t take shortcuts; know your goals and get them done).
Rule #7: Writing isn’t easy – it’s hard. Good writing is even harder.
Maybe you only write when the muse strikes you. You go on writing binges and it’s fantastic stuff, but when the muse is gone, you can’t get a single sentence on the page. Well, put on your big boy pants (or big girl panties) and do the hard work. That’s what makes you a writer. If the impulse to binge write comes, you should still embrace it and take advantage of it, but in my experience, if you wait for those moments to come, they don’t come often enough. Frankly, I think they are more often a product of your brain looking for something fun to do when it should be doing something else; as soon as “writing my novel” becomes the thing you are supposed to be doing, you look for something else to do (google “procrastination” and “instant gratification monkey” and you’ll see what I’m talking about). If you really want to milk those binge impulses, you could always look for other things to do to distract you (and then persuade yourself to write when you should really be doing those other things) . . . but my guess is you’ll end up doing neither of the things you planned to do and will instead do something mindless, unproductive, or unfulfilling (because that is how the gratification monkey works). The best solution is to simply teach yourself to write (even when it is hard, and you hate it, and you only write a few hundred words a day, or five words a day). Eventually the words add up and you have a book to revise. Then you revise it and you have a book to sell. Persistence pays off. For myself, I accept that I have weaknesses, but I don’t let them become part of my script. Yes, sometimes I convince myself that I will feel better getting on social media before writing, or I will feel better researching this one non-essential thing before I start writing, but it’s never true. I always regret the time I could have spent getting more writing done, and you’ll only gain confidence in yourself once you teach yourself to overcome those impulses and simply do the thing you’re supposed to be doing.
Rule #8: Confidence is huge.
Become confident in your ability to write every day, and you will write every day. If you don’t have that confidence yet, believe that you can get it and keep working toward it. That, or give up and stop torturing yourself with something you don’t really want to do (or don’t have the discipline to do). You’re the only one who can decide if that last part applies to you. Once you gain confidence in your ability to write, find confidence in your authorial voice. Everyone writes differently after all, and every reader has different tastes, so don’t waste time or energy trying to please everybody or lamenting the so-and-so writer does such-and-such thing better. If you really want to develop that skill, you can. Just be confident and trust in your ability to use patience and persistence to improve in that skill. More importantly, though, you should lean into your strengths. Know what it is you do that people like, love, and praise. Advertise that. Make it part of your own narrative as a writer. Myself, I had no idea what my authorial voice was until I wrote my first book – and even then it was just a suspicion. Hearing commentary from my editors (and later from readers) taught me even more (far, far, far more than I could ever learn on my own). Sometimes it came in the form of praise. Sometimes it came as constructive criticism. A few times it was downright vitriolic. Each time, I listened to the subtext of what was being said and I compared it with my own narrative story to see if those comments resonated with me, and I gradually developed a picture of who I was as a writer (something I couldn’t have said with confidence before). This narrative includes both my strengths and my weaknesses, and it has shown me which things I know are true about me and my stories . . . and which things are just my personal fears and/or the rantings of one disaffected reader or overenthusiastic fan. That knowledge has brought me CONFIDENCE – and having confidence is and will always be one of your most powerful writing tools. It will help you get the writing done, and it help you revise the story once it’s written, and it will help you talk about your writing both before and after it’s been published.
So, with all of that said, let me tell you what I’ve learned about myself and my writing – what I can say with confidence: I’m a writer of Dark Epic Fantasy, which straddles the imaginary line between traditional Epic fantasy and Grimdark Fantasy. I write books that are hopeful and filled with the tropes of the High Fantasy . . . but I also love to invert those tropes, usually with threads of Horror or Sword & Sorcery fantasy. That means my stories have an odd blend of grim and gritty modern realism (think Mark Lawrence or R.F. Kuang) combined with the pastiche of nostalgic epic fantasy from the ‘80s and ‘90s (think David Eddings, R.A. Salvatore, or Robert Jordan). I am most often compared to Brandon Sanderson because I write big books with an immense amount of world-building, my prose is more workman-like than lyrical, and I use hard magic systems to solve story problems and puzzles. Like Sanderson, you can trust my stories not to venture into the vulgar or profane, which means they can be enjoyed by both adults and young adults; however, my writing is more gritty – more visceral – and I won’t shy from describing either brutality or horror. Alternatively, I’ve seen many comparisons between myself and Patrick Rothfuss – not because I can mimic Pat’s poetic language, but because I love long-form storytelling and because I prefer to give my characters the time and space to develop authentically within the confines of the narrative. Like Rothfuss, my stories are “slowburns” characterized by a temperate, methodical first act that builds to a crescendo of dramatic action (Frank Herbert was also accused of this but preferred to call it “coital pacing,” which I rather like).
I also talk too much (maybe you’ve noticed that), but if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read thus far, I’d wager you’d also like my books. I’m currently writing the third volume of The Silent Gods series, which is about a young hero trying to find his place in the world . . . and discovering he may actually be the Dark Lord. If that intrigues you, go check out my debut, Master of Sorrows, and then pick up the sequel, Master Artificer, which will have just been released by the time this posts (May 6th for the UK, May 18th for the US).
I’m confident you’ll enjoy them both.
