Christian Freelance Writers Network
Musings on the business, craft, and joy of faith-filled writing
A good book has no ending.
– Robert Frost
There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
– Frank Herbert
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
– Italo Calvino
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
– Leonardo da Vinci
How do you know when it’s time to let go of your manuscript or project? Do you feel pressured to tie things up or are you able to trust the conclusion to your audience? Please share your thoughts below.
Ignore all lists of writing tips. Including this one. And including this tip. Or at least take them with a big pinch of salt. I have never met two writers who work exactly the same way: One of the hardest, but ultimately most rewarding, things about writing is that you have to work out for yourself who and what you are as a writer, and how you yourself work best. When you’re starting out, it’s very easy to see a piece of advice by [insert your favourite author here] and think, If s/he writes like this, I must do it that way too. That can be unhelpful, and instead I think that every time you hear a writing tip, you have to decide whether it means something to you, resonates with you, or whether it sounds like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard. It’s your book, you need to learn to write it your way. Now please ignore this advice.
Marcus Sedgwick, at the 2016 Cheltenham Literature Festival
Gifted authors are fundamentally people who have seen something others have missed and enable us to grasp and appreciate this new way of seeing things in and through their writings. The best writers are not self-promoting narcissists who demand that we look at them, but those who invite us to look through them at what they have seen, so that we too might share in their experiences. They are windows to something that is greater. Those who have seen this before us thus stand to one side so that we might see where they are pointing rather than be distracted by them.
Alister E. McGrath, Mere Discipleship, p. 48
Just sit down and write your book.
I know that sounds painfully simple, but you’d be surprised how many people want to write a book but never do. So just “doing it” is 80 percent of the battle.
Have fun when you write. Don’t worry about how it turns out. Lose yourself in your sentences. Enjoy the tapping sound of the keyboard. Success is not not your reward. Your life is your reward. The book is merely evidence of your wonderful life.
Sean Dietrich
When you write, you should pretend that you, the writer, see something in the world that’s interesting, that you are directing the attention of your reader to that thing in the world, and that you are doing so by means of conversation.
Steven Pinker
Step 1: Wonder at something.
Step 2: Invite others to wonder with you.
Point at things, say, “whoa,” and elaborate.
Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.
– John D. Rockefeller
Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.
– Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.
2 Peter 1:5-7
I have found that unless I make myself some office hours and stick to them—8.30 to 11 A.M. and 1 to 3 P.M.—I don’t do any writing. I pick some wild flowers and arrange them, wash the dog, and make a cake, and then it’s too late to start this morning. So I read another chapter of the book I started last night and go swimming. Morning is really the time your mind is clearest, I remember being told. There’s no sense in trying to start writing in the afternoon. So I’ll write tomorrow. I really will.
But I wouldn’t if I didn’t have my office hours. If I can’t think of anything to write about, I just sit in front of the typewriter and brood.
― Louise Rich Dickinson
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
E.B. White
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.
C.S. Lewis
If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.
Ecclesiastes 11:4 (The Living Bible)
In a profile I wrote of Christian musician Phil Keaggy, I could have told readers his mother was kind and loving. Instead, I briefly related something he shared in our interview: She warmed his pajamas on the radiator every night before he dressed for bed. That little detail showed her loving heart and kindness. No need for telling.
Joyce K. Ellis, Write with Excellence
“Ultimately, you have to sit down and start to write. And even if all you do is type out “I can’t write this morning; I can’t write this morning; oh, bother, I can’t write this morning,” that will sometimes prime the pump and get it started.”
Madeleine L’Engle, Madeleine L’Engle Herself (2001)
