I’ve been taking a little break from the internet to finish working on a couple of stories. It’s been going well but not as fast as I would like. Earlier this week, an acquaintance asked for a little writing advice. I’m always willing to help out but I had a bad feeling about this.
When he asked how to turn his ideas into a novel, I told him that he needed to sit down and just start writing. It didn’t matter what he wrote. It could be a synopsis, an outline, or just a todo list. The important thing was to get started. This wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear or the one he was looking for. He spent the next thirty minutes telling me about his idea for his book. I listened to his idea. It didn’t sound all that interesting to me but my opinion didn’t matter. He wanted advice on how to proceed, not whether or not I liked his idea so I asked him if he had written it down someplace. The answer was no. I went back to my original answer. I suggested he write his idea down and flesh it out a bit. That would make it easier to get started. He could figure out what research, if any, he needed to do and all the little things you think about when you start writing a book.
I thought my suggestion was a good one but he didn’t seem to like it. Instead, he went back to his idea and asked me how I could help him write the book. This is where the annoyance factor kicked in. He wasn’t interested in sitting down and writing a book. He wanted to someone to do the writing for him while he fed them ideas. I don’t know how many authors go through this sort of thing but it’s one of my pet peeves.
Instead of ranting, I told him that I have enough of my own ideas to work on unless he was willing to pay me for my time. He was actually shocked by my suggestion and the conversation ended. I have a feeling I might have cost myself a few book sales. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I feel better for sharing this, even thought it took me an hour to write this short post.
Okay, the sun is up and it’s time for me to get back to it. Have a good weekend.
Richard Jackson 