Random Notes: Learning your craft
A few words of advice for aspiring writers...
Welcome to one of my occasional posts… this time on the craft of writing.
Less than 3 months ago I was on a cruise ship bound for Norway (to see the northern lights) and on the first sea day I saw that one of the activities was ‘watercolour painting’. I’ve seen this offered on other cruises but coming from a long line of extremely talented artists (my grandmother was Slade School of Art trained and her grandfather a recognised minor Australian artist), the thought of turning my hand to the craft of painting has only ever hovered in the region of “What is the point of even trying?” Granma, God rest her, did try to interest me, but I was a non starter. (She also tried to get me into lace making - another creative fail.)
Lacking anything else to amuse myself on the ship, I took myself off to the first session, was handed a kit and off we went, starting with the basics of cool and warm colours, the different types of brush strokes… and over the next few days on to the different ways you can use watercolour. By the end of the cruise I was hooked.
On my return to dry land, I bolstered my art supplies and signed up for a couple of ‘Beginners’ classes on the internet. My Facebook feed filled with classes and videos and I have consumed as many as I can. Nearly every afternoon, AFTER completing my word count for the day, I adjourn to the dining room table to paint. Sometimes a video and sometimes testing my fledgling wings on something more daring (like the protea below which was in a bunch of Mother’s Day flowers from my son). I like to think I have improved a bit…
Which brings me to the point of this post. Learning to paint is about learning a craft. Learning to write is learning a craft! You have to understand the basics, the structures, the theories… this is the bedrock on which you can improve. And we are always improving… ALWAYS. I have written sixteen books, but every book I write, I am still honing my craft.
I have also been writing for thirty years. I have been painting for three months. I know I am still a beginner. I know there is so much more to learn, but I have shaken off the shades of my painting forebears, and I am painting for the sheer pleasure it brings me. ME! My paintings won’t be hung on any walls and will probably end up in a skip. They mean nothing to anyone else but to me each new adventure in colour is a new discovery.
Which brings me to my point… the lesson here is for aspiring writers… we all start somewhere. You will have written screeds of short stories, school creative compositions, half started projects etc before you sit down to write your first novel from beginning to end. So you are already on the road. Now work on the craft!
I wrote my first book knowing nothing about structure, point of view, character development etc but I had a story I was desperate to tell and as with my new adventures in painting, I seized every spare moment to keep writing it - telling myself the story as I went until one day it looked like a completed novel. I was fortunate that despite its defects, it worked (and it is in print), but I went back and did classes and workshops and built my theoretical knowledge of the structures behind a good story. Knowing what I know now… would I do it differently? I certainly would.
So… if you are reading this and you are an aspiring writer, be kind to yourself. Don’t be sucked into the vortex of thinking you HAVE to get your book up on Amazon or you won’t be a real writer. You are a real writer, but give yourself permission to write for the joy of it, learn from your mistakes and frustrations. Everything you write will take you one step closer to perfecting your craft (and remember how awful my first watercolour apples were!).
Best wishes
Alison
