Advice from an author

bycwpickett

403 followers

Updated 5 years ago

Here's a hint on writing from best selling author, Betty Smith. She published A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 1945, a novel about a young girl growing up in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century. The book was so popular, World War II soldiers read her book in the trenches. If you want to take a trip down memory lane and learn what life was like before the wars changed the world, this is the book for you.

What compelled me to tell you about Betty Smith is the advice she passed down. Her daughter said all she would do was write - you can see her at the typewriter, cigarette hanging from lips, long ashes dropping off into her lap, she unconsciously brushed them away and continued on with her writing. This is pure dedication, I would say, albeit an unhealthy one!!!

At any rate, she was a prolific writer, and published many works during her lifetime. Like most writers, she wasn't rich, but she was dedicated to write.

I am passing on her advice because we are all writers. Whether blogs or books, or both, we are of a profession that dictates quality in everything we write. Paying attention to small details - typos and such, are what make the difference between an OK blog and one that will be passed on to others.

These are the rules Betty Smith lived by and what made her a successful author. (They have been updated to fit today's writing world).

Rule #1. Writing is a profession! It should be handled that way.

2. Know the proper formation for submitting blogs, books, plays, articles. Do your homework. Know what is expected of you.

3. Learn to think on the typewriter (the keyboard). This saves tremendous time as opposed to writing things out and then typing them in. Imagine how it must have been before word processors when all that is necessary now are the backspace and delete keys. Imagine the writer madly pulling sheets of paper out of the typewriter and starting the page over. Many books were written this way!

4.. Keep detailed records. Betty kept records of the possible markets where she could sell her books, every manuscript she completed, and when and where she submitted the manuscripts. She kept track of all sales, and saved all her reviews and editorial comments (even the bad ones).

5. Most importantly, she was constantly generating new projects and kept the deadlines she set.

Rule #6. Her last piece of advice - one we will all love to hear - LET THE HOUSEWORK GO.

If you want to write, you have to be okay with messes and not getting other things done. Your passion drives you, and if a clean house is important to you, put your kids to work.

I am passing this on because my fifth book took nearly a year to write. I was distracted and absent. It seemed like weeks would go by before I came up for air. And yes, I let the housework go, but no cigarettes for this kid. Writing is a chore, even though it is a passion that drives us. There is much to think about, whether writing a 2,000-word blog or a 20,000-word book, and we need to think without distractions.

In this day of great technology, it is easier than ever to keep records of our work. We see our posts in real time, and everything is automatically archived from day one. But many of us have a website as an extension of what we do, and detailed records for the off-line work is equally necessary.

Going to this extent to keeping up with your writing may seem mundane, but the reason for all this - it makes you feel like a writer. By treating your writing as a profession, you are raising the bar for your expectations. And the higher your expectations, the more likely you are to treat your business as a profession, and the greater your success.

Betty Smith's advice was taken from an article written by her daughter.

Pfieffer, N. (2006). Things I want to say about my mother. Harper Perinnial Modern Classics Edition (1st). Smith, Betty. A tree grows in Brooklyn. NY

Have thoughts on this? Comments welcome.