5 Things I’ve Learned About Writing

When I first started Hope In Every Raindrop I thought I knew a lot about writing.

Several years ago I was originally majoring in English (though later changed to Civil Engineering, and yes I know that’s the complete opposite) at the University of Florida and took several creative writing courses during my freshman and sophomore year. I still remember the day my poetry teacher told us she used to swallow swords in India for a living, but there’s another time for that story.

I’ve read books like Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott and On Writing by Stephen King.

I mean, I’ve been writing consistently since about age 17.  Looking back through my writing (from what I actually saved) I’ve written:

• 255 poems
• 11 essays
• 21 short stories
• 2 fiction novels (published this one)
• 1 non-fiction book

That’s a lot. Right?

Perhaps, but the truth is that’s not the right question.

By the time I published Hope In Every Raindrop I realized that writing a lot is only part of the equation.

5 Things I Learned About Writing

Some of these lessons are technical, while some are more philosophical, but either way I hope you’ll learn something from them.

1. The one sentence rule. If you can’t summarize your book in a single sentence then you’re not ready to write it. This will, by far, be the toughest sentence you will ever have to write, but it will also be the most valuable.

I learned this when reading about the snowflake method, and you can check out my single sentence for Hope In Every Raindrop below. It took me about 3 hours to word this sentence and I’ve written it probably 100+ times in the past 6 months alone.

2. Writing is work. In order to meet the deadline for my next novel I have to hit 2,000 words per day for the next few weeks (something Nicholas Sparks does almost everyday). Some days the writing comes easy and I’m done in a couple hours. Other days it’s like an epic battle with my keyboard in which I hate every single word that I’ve written.

3. Head hopping. This is probably the one technical aspect of writing that I learned the hard way. When writing in third person limited the reader can see only what the character sees. For example, in Hope In Every Raindrop, if the scene is in Katie’s point of view then the reader should only know what’s going on in Katie’s head.

4. No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader. This is what a lot of it boils down to. If you’re not moved by your own writing, why would anyone else be?

“No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader.” – Robert Frost (Tweet this)

5. The hardest part is showing up. Whenever I read books on writing, or interviews by famous authors they always said the same thing: write daily. I thought this was the biggest load of crap…at first. As I started to write more and more I realized this is really the number one secret to writing. Because the truth is, a lot of people that want to be writers, but very few want to show up an do the work.

This last lesson has as much to do with writing as it does with life, and the ultimate question is, will anyone be blown away by your ability to show up?