This is a continuation of a discussion that began in the "Stuff you hate" thread.
We are only caretakers of that which is better than us.
Wouldn't that make it all the more important to specifically practice and develop one's self so as to be a better, more capable caretaker?
Consider Cecilia Gimenez. She was passionate about caring for "that which is better" than herself. Aaaaaand she made a mess of Elias Garcia Martinez's Ecce Homo by not first ensuring she had the skills to care for it.
Though that said, I would disagree that ideas are really that significant. It's rather easy to come up with new ideas, better ideas. Indeed, the more one writes, the more one practices being creative, the easier it is, and the finer one's product. The thoughts we think now are thin when compared to those we might think tomorrow.
I'm not sure that's the greatest of analogies. Making sure every step is perfect would be counterproductive, as only the first 20 seconds worth of steps is worth remembering for purposes of technique. The rest is just repetition and knowing yourself well enough to know what pace you should maintain. Besides, I would argue that the way you breathe is much more important than the way you run, but I'm just being annoying here.
Focusing on breathing might be good, but that also won’t make someone be able to run a 6 minute mile. The various techniques involved might be worthwhile, but again, none of them will make someone able to run a 6 minute mile. The only thing that can even get them close is to start running miles.
The rub is, that has always been true for everything ever. Want to be a good baker? Then bake! Want to be a good fencer? Fence! Want to be a good carpenter? Carpent!
There are hordes of techniques that are useful, but one can only learn them by doing, and learning the techniques separate from practicing still won’t make someone be a master at their craft. Overnight successes are backed up by decades of work.
Each genre has a set of rules that are difficult to break away from. Readers are fickle and expect certain things, and going against the grain of their expectations can be dangerous.
Ah, this gets onto the topic of making and breaking promises to the reader. If I write an epic fantasy, then I am making a promise to the reader that they'll get an epic fantasy. If I give then a supernatural romance story with sparkly vampires instead, I've broken the promise, and readers have a justifiable reason to be upset. Of course, if I write an epic fantasy, put a really cool and very in-genre element early in the book in passing, but then never return to it, I'm breaking a different kind of promise (the implied promise that the cool thing will get more screen time later).
But I was mostly talking about my own preferences. I think I want to write fantasy (probably not exclusively epic fantasy), but I might find that I am better or enjoy writing a different genre more. And, of course, what I learn from one genre I can always try to take to another (POV descriptions setting a general tone/mood of the book is something that horror does extremely well: could well take a lesson from that and move it into a different genre).
I'm not sure what you mean by "consistent writing sessions". I'm guessing you mean a series of sessions where I just write things down without thinking about it too much. If so, I'll concede I did that very little, and usually only as part of a formal assignment in creative writing class. I got nothing out of such exercises except a sore hand, when I was able to write anything at all. It's just not in my nature to take shots in the dark on paper.
By your own account you didn't really give it a fair shake, so I think you're not being fair to yourself to say what is and isn't in your nature.
I'd say you need to have a specific time to write, even if only a half hour, and that you stick to that every day for a few months. Give it your best effort. And, if after a quarter of a year you still haven't improved, both in the quality of your writing and in the ease of writing, then, well, you'll have given it a fair shot. But you will improve (because you can't really practice in earnest without getting better), so there's no need to worry about that.
To give some context, I started this myself in mid January. It took until March before I really got into any kind of groove, and even then, I was only managing around 300 words for every hour or two of writing. By late July/early August, I was managing 1000 words an hour, all of it far better than what I had written in March. I don't expect to increase my writing rate more than that (500-1000 words an hours seems on par for professional writers). But since then, my writings still been improving.
Am I a different writer and do I have a different process? Yes. But we're still both humans: certain constants don't change. Consistent practice producing improvements is one of those.
If you need an outline, have an outline while you write. Don't worry about speed: 300 words an hour might be high for you, but a week of even just writing 10 words an hour is better than a week of no writing. And if you can't write without thinking first, that's fine: most professional authors can type between 3600 and 5400 words an hour, but write at a speed of between 500 and 1000 an hour. That alone indicates that everyone is writing while thinking.
I should probably mention in passing that part of the reason I recommended reading the comments is that a surprisingly high percentage of the commentors are successful published authors. So that thread isn't just one editor's discussion of slush, but that of several industry professionals.
Yup. Every name I recognized was quite exciting. Just, 900 comments. Damn, that's a lot.
