Advice to Writers from Billy Collins and Others

ADVICE TO WRITERS by Billy Collins from Sailing Alone Around the Room  (Random House)
Even if it keeps you up all night,
wash down the walls and scrub the floor
of your study before composing a syllable.

Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.
The more you clean, the more brilliant
your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
to the open fields to scour the undersides
of rocks or swab in the dark forest
 upper branches, nests full of eggs.

When you find your way back home
and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
you will behold in the light of dawn
the immaculate altar of your desk,
a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.

From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
and cover pages with tiny sentences
like long rows of devoted ants
that followed you in from the woods.


Today is one of those days where my energy level is more conducive to slogging than blogging.  The sliver of sky I can see out the window may be a clear bright blue, but the throbbing behind my eyes tells me a storm is approaching.  And now I'm beginning to suspect that the decongestant I took this morning to help keep the "human barometer" headaches in check was not actually anti-drowsy like I assumed it was.  On days like these it's hard for me to get motivated to do anything but climb back in my cozy bed and take a nap, which is what I did yesterday afternoon and why this Billy Collins poem post is a day late. 

I've mentioned before I'm not the tidiest person, but I love the advice that Billy Collins gives to writers in this poem.  There is something about cleaning-- the attention to detail, the repetitive motions, the work it takes to create space-- that is in its own way a creative act.  (But don't tell my mother I said that.)

Billy Collins' poem reminded me of a two-part article I re-read recently that was originally published in The Guardian back in 2010.  Building upon Elmore Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing" they asked contemporary authors for their own top ten lists.

There are some ubiquitous words of wisdom that you'd expect to find.  Write don't just think about writing.  Have a routine.  Finish what you start (one of my problems).  Have a few things going at once (not one of my problems).  Read your writing aloud.  Edit.  Put finished pieces aside for a while.  Go back and edit again.  And when you're not writing or editing, read, take walks, clean the house and do laundry.

I shouldn't have a picture of
Virginia Woolf on my desk but I
can re-read this biography
written by her nephew

There's also contradictory advice.  Jeanette Winterson suggests when you're stuck you stay at your desk but write something else.  Hilary Mantel says when you're stuck get away from your desk and take a walk, bake a pie, meditate, have a bath-- anything that will create the space for your "lost words" to come back to you.  (For the same reason, she discourages talking to other people during those times as their words may creep into that space instead of yours.) 

Annie Proulx suggests writing by hand while Zadie Smith says to use a computer that is disconnected from the internet.  Roddy Doyle says not to have a picture of your favorite author on your desk, "especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide."  Fellow Irishman Colm Tóibín suggests, "If you have to read, to cheer yourself up read biographies of writers who went insane."

If you want to read the articles for yourself,which I highly recommend,  here are the links to Part One and Part Two. 

And here are the bits of advice I'm going to start incorporating in my own craft.  Some are incredibly practical words of wisdom I've never thought of before.  Some I know I need to do and don't.  And the rest, well Ann Enright's Rule #9 is, "Have fun," so the remainders are on here to encourage me to do just that.


Diana Athill -  You don't always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they'd be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it's the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.)

Fanny reading Keats' letter from the movie Bright Star

Margaret Atwood - Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

Helen Dunmore - Read Keats' letters.

Geoff Dyer - If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great auto­correct files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes ­"photography" and so on. ­Genius!

 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

Neil Gaiman - Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

Hilary Mantel - Concentrate your narrative energy on the point of change. This is especially important for historical fiction. When your character is new to a place, or things alter around them, that's the point to step back and fill in the details of their world. People don't notice their everyday surroundings and daily routine, so when writers describe them it can sound as if they're trying too hard to instruct the reader.

Andrew Motion - Honour the miraculousness of the ordinary.

Will Self - Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever.

Zadie Smith - Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.



Keats again?
 I'm sensing a theme here . . .

Colm Tóibín - On Saturdays, you can watch an old Bergman film, preferably Persona or Autumn Sonata.

Rose Tremain - When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait and obey". Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being.

Sarah Waters -  Writing fiction is not "self-­expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.

Jeanette Winterson - Trust your creativity.