Tagged: Spider-Man

I was at the FallCon in St. Paul, Minnesota, a few weekends back. Nice little to medium sized Con, the sort I really enjoy these days. You get a chance to talk to the fans and see a few other friends and old pros. I spent some nice time with Pete Tomasi and sat across from Howard Chaykin at a wedding reception/dinner that was held at the Con.        

One of the things I did at the Con was teach a writing class. It was comics based, but I felt a lot of it was pertinent to writing in general so this week I’ll share some of the points I made with all of you as well.

What does a writer do? I start every class off with this question. It’s not really a trick question unless you overthink it. The answer is simple: a writer writes. Every day. We don’t just think about writing or talk about writing although, ghods know, we do that as well because it’s a lot easier than actually doing the work, doing the writing. The action defines what you are. If you write, then you’re a writer. If you don’t write, then you’re something else. A dreamer, a procrastinator, a … something, but not a writer. A writer writes.

Many people say they don’t have time but they really want to be a writer. The solution – write. Find a time. It can be as little as five minutes a day to begin with but it needs to be five minutes every day and it should be at the same time and the same place. Why? Because what you want is to get into a habit of writing. It’s not the length of time but the repetition. It’s like learning to throw free throws in basketball; you have to do it a lot until it becomes second nature. At the start, it will be the same for your writing. It’s not going to be the quality of what you write that matters but the number of reps you do. As I said here a few weeks back, you’re going to start by writing crap. Everyone does. You keep writing and, if you have any talent and learn some skill, you’ll improve but only if you keep writing.

Incarnation. This is what all artists do. We take a thought, a feeling, an insight – something that has no physical form and we incarnate it. We give it a physical form. Artists do it with pencil, ink, paint, and sculpture; composers do it with notes. Writers do it with words. The problem with incarnation is that it is always physically imperfect. What you create will never capture exactly what you had in your mind or heart or soul. I know people who have a real problem with that. They’re almost afraid to incarnate the idea because incarnation is messy and imperfect by its very nature. That’s especially true if you create something that has a life of its own. If you do your job as an artist very well, what you create will take you in places you didn’t think you were going. Let it. Just accept that it’s messy. Life is messy.
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