Want to Write a Novel? Be Like Mike and Do the Work Every Day

A couple weeks ago at the monthly Zoom meeting of Citrus Crime Writers, noir author Michael Wiley dazzled the group by leading a discussion about the craft of writing dialogue. As always, lessons were to be learned.

One takeaway, even after years of writing commercial fiction, is that you can almost always have at least one takeaway from a conversation. I think Michael gave us a dozen.

But it was the run-up to his presentation that reminded me that process makes all.

One of my duties as current chapter vice president is coordinating the visits of our monthly speakers. That is, finding them, getting them locked in and making sure everything runs smoothly. Which, in the case of Michael, meant offering him the opportunity over the summer to speak, hammering out a date and a topic and then, a month prior to the big day, having a one-on-one chat to educate him more about our group and its likes and dislikes.

Award-winning author Michael Wiley. Credit: Michael Wiley

We’d met a decade earlier at a writer’s conference at which he was up for an award. Seated at the same lunch table – he was slumming – he graciously educated a newcomer about the strange ways of the book publishing business: agents, editors, publishers, etc.

That slim history, combined with the fact I had spent more than 20 years as a working reporter and editor, was enough to make me feel comfortable walking him through the typical CCW chapter meeting and listening to his proposed presentation.

Do Your Work: Write

It was during that 20-minute prep Zoom that it became clear why he remains in the crime fiction game. He’s passionate about it, and he works at it. Every day. No matter what.

As Stephen King has said: “Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine ‘til noon.”

A novel starts and gets completed with a butt in the chair.

The world is filled with people who say they want to write a book. Everyone wants to write a book. Damn few do.

Since starting my first novel in 2007, I’ve met a healthy number of young writers already on their writing journey. Like most people who say they want to write a book, some of these writers have a notion that writing is a peaceful, blissful, creative endeavor. It is that . . . about 5 percent of the time.

The rest of the journey, as sports columnist Red Smith once said, is as easy as opening up a vein and bleeding on the page.

Creative Writing Mostly Isn’t Creative

Yes, OK, writing fiction is creative. But it’s not gentle. It’s aggressively trying to put your brain into your fingers, transfer it to the keyboard, and get it into a cogent form so that when you re-read it tomorrow, it makes sense.

And then doing it again the next day. And the day after that.

Once the first draft is done, the next round of hard work begins: the engineering. You have to make sure the scene order is correct, that you aren’t repeating things, that you’re capably and subtly guiding the reason to the exact place you want them to be.

For those of us in the mystery, suspense and thriller game, you have to place your clues in the right places. You have to make sure pace and plot connect and that characters are developed enough to engage readers enough to keep them coming back. Or, as some authors attest, you at least have to please your agent or your publisher.

The bottom line is, you have to do the work.

Books don’t write themselves. They never have. Writers who publish – writers who become authors – get their names on a book cover and spine because they refused NOT to write. Refused not to finish. Refused not to finish the story.

Having talked to Michael Wiley and other authors like Reed Farrel Coleman, a decorated author who is keeping the Jesse Stone series alive for Robert B. Parker as he continues writing his own novels, the message is this: you can’t call yourself a writer if you don’t write every day. It doesn’t have to be a scene. (Fiction, like movie or television scripts, is written in scenes, not chapters.)

But every day, you must advance the story. Or edit the story. Or polish the story.

In short: Be like Mike.

Bright Side of the Pandemic

When the pandemic first arrived in March 2020, my second novel was foundering. I had 20,000 words or so after about a year of writing. And suddenly, the drive to the office was reduced to a walk from the bedroom, and the structure of the day was changed completely.

Everyone in my orbit was scared: of Covid-19, of a job layoff, of running out of toilet paper or food, of other people who were belligerent about not wearing masks. It was a time to buckle down and focus.

Turns out a little fear brings the muse out of hiding. By October, I had added more than 80,000 words to the story, and it was in fine shape.

Two years later, I’m at 116,000 words. That’s right, you can read between the lines: the muse went away. Or, rather, I stopped getting in the chair until just a couple months ago.

Today, the is too long by at least 21,000 words. The story isn’t quite done. Almost. But doing the work every day is back to being a habit. Now, to finish.

And then it’s onto the second draft.