7 Open Secrets of Successful Writers

After years of reading about the writing lives of authors who’ve made it, I feel it can be distilled to these truths:

1- Motivation
“I write when I’m inspired and I see to it that I’m inspired at 9 ‘o’ clock every morning.” – Peter De Vries. Successful writers have a burning desire to write and therefore, make that passion the driving force in their lives. They organize themselves to feed that motivation, whether its through healthy writing regimens, or clarity on writing goals, or even just being alive to inspiration.

2- Goals
Most successful writers set goals for themselves. Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day when he’s working on a book. Ernest Hemmingway wrote 500 words per day. Some writers have page quotas, others measure themselves against chapters written, still others may have monthly goals of finishing drafts. Successful writers recognize that just like for any other endeavour, goal-setting is important, because it makes you results-oriented and keeps you on track.

3- Regimen
The more I read about writers at the top of their game, the more I realize that they hold themselves to a strict schedule of daily writing. In a 2004 interview, Haruki Murakami said that when in writing mode, he wakes up at 4 a.m., works for five or six hours and goes to bed by 9 p.m. And this continues for the course of his writing the novel. Most notable authors have some form of a schedule that they follow DAILY and have a healthy relationship with time balancing the mental work with physical activity.

4- Reading

“My first rule was given to me by TH White, author of The Sword in the Stone and other Arthurian fantasies and was: Read. Read everything you can lay hands on.” – Michael Moorcock. A writer who does not read is ignoring a vital component of their education as a writer. You can almost always tell the work of a reader apart from the work of a non-reader. Every successful writer I have read about has made time to read because they have understood it is the best insight to excellent and execrable writing, the best teacher they can have.

5- Craft Development
Even accomplished writers are always seeking to improve their craft. Even after being published and famous, writers continue to stay engaged with the technical aspects of writing by attending conferences or teaching and participating in workshops. Some, like Raymond Chandler, focus on aspects other than technique to enable them to do their writing better. Chandler reportedly shows up at his desk even when he has nothing to write because he is building up his concentration and stamina as a writer.

6- Tenacity
Successful writers recognize that writing is a long, hard road littered with obstacles like fear, insecurity, loneliness, perfection paralysis among other things and that it is the easiest thing to want to stop midway and take up a craft less-threatening to one’s sanity. Stick-to-itivity is the most powerful weapon in a writer’s arsenal and those at the top of their craft have gotten there by not giving up. Stephen King is reported to have exchanged the nail in his wall for a longer spike when the nail could no longer hold all his rejections. He did not let them discourage him. Joyce Carol Oates says “I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing has seemed worth enduring for another five minutes… and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so.”

7- Revision
The writers we love, praise and put on a pedestal got there by ruthless reworking of drafts until they were the polished text we read. Revision is a tedious process at times but also the most rewarding. It turns a rough, crude jumble of words into beautiful prose or poetry. Successful writers know that revision is the backbone of all good writing. “I have rewritten — often several times — every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.” — Vladimir Nabokov.

Hope you find this useful. Until next week!