It\u2019s an odd one this week.<\/p>\n
Normally, I don\u2019t find any difficulty in finding stuff to talk about. There\u2019s a lot I want to say, so I stumble blearily into my Shed of Ideas, crash into a couple of seed trays, spike my foot on a garden fork, grab something off a dusty shelf, and stagger back out into the light to discover, properly, what it is I\u2019m holding.<\/p>\n
And today? Well \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
An American election, a hugely consequential one, is stumbling towards some off kind of denouement.<\/p>\n
England has just entered its second national lockdown. A lot of things that were normal on Monday are illegal on Friday.<\/p>\n
And (something that doesn\u2019t theoretically seem like it should belong on the same list, but is about equally insistent in my head) \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n
This morning is brilliantly sunny. The beech trees are towers of gold. Field maples flare in the hedges. There\u2019s something about so much beauty that makes it hard to concentrate on the page.<\/p>\n
So what do I need to tell you this week? I don\u2019t know. My normal Shed of Ideas strategy isn\u2019t quite working, so instead I\u2019m going to steal.<\/p>\n
The person I\u2019m stealing from today is David Gaughran, the Lord High Wizard of Self-Pub. (And if you are self-publishing and don\u2019t yet subscribe to his newsletter, then you should.) A week or two back, he launched a little homily reminding you that you don\u2019t have to be great at everything<\/strong>.<\/p>\n He meant this in marketing terms. With self-publishing, if you can attract traffic via Facebook and retain readers via emails, you\u2019re fine. You have enough. Just write good books, put good covers on them, do the other bits intelligently, then rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.<\/p>\n Yes, there are other tools for getting traffic. (Amazon ads. Bookbub ads. Newsletter swaps. Blog tours. Giveaways. Social media. Yadda yadda.) And if you enjoy them, if you\u2019re good at them, if they make you money, then great. If not, leave them.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a good writer and a moderate marketer, but that\u2019s been enough for my self-pub stuff to do well. You don\u2019t need to deploy all the tools that exist. You just need to use the ones that work for you.<\/p>\n Same when it comes to writing.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you have a great idea and a powerful plot, then quite honestly, if your goal is Big 5 publication, you can probably achieve that so long as your other things (prose style, characterisation, etc) are reasonably professional. And \u2018reasonably professional\u2019 is a very achievable standard. It\u2019s the sort of thing that you may arrive at naturally, just through your own savvy. Or maybe you work at it \u2013 take a course, attend some webinars \u2013 and make the grade that way.<\/p>\n Likewise, if you aiming at something more literary than genre fiction, you don\u2019t have to excel at everything. Most literary fiction is limply plotted. I remember my editor at Orion talking about a Booker Prize winning novel and shaking his head in disbelief at the story\u2019s calamitous failure to cohere. But \u2013 the idea was interesting, the writing was strong, and the book worked those assets hard enough to secure its victory.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be good at everything. And you won\u2019t be good at everything. So don\u2019t fret about it.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t even matter whether you are a natural born talent or just someone who works hard<\/strong>. The reader doesn\u2019t know or care. Your editor won\u2019t know or care. It just doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n So maybe you built your writing and self-editing skills by living on a remote island and honing your craft, page by page and book by book. Or maybe you do those things in company \u2013 on a course, via our lovely webinars, and whatever else.<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t matter. Whatever works for you. You don\u2019t get extra points for figuring something out entirely by yourself. All that matters is what you end up putting down on the page. No one cares how you built the skills you have.<\/p>\n And yes: there are some real, honest-to-God geniuses out there. Gillian Flynn\u2019s Gone Girl was perhaps the best crime novel of the last twenty years. The idea was a gem. The writing was golden. The characters were perfect. The plotting crunched a bit in places, but it was better than fine overall.<\/p>\n And OK. Probably none of us are going to write a book as good as that one. But you can be outstandingly successful \u2013 commercially and artistically \u2013 without being a genius. Most very successful books are not works of genius. Most very successful authors aren\u2019t geniuses.<\/p>\n They\u2019re not perfect. You don\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t beat yourself up.<\/p>\n Go look at some autumn leaves. They’ll still look pretty no matter who wins the election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s an odd one this week. Normally, I don\u2019t find any difficulty in finding stuff to talk about. There\u2019s a lot I want to say, so I stumble blearily into my Shed of Ideas, crash into a couple of seed trays, spike my foot on a garden fork, grab something off a dusty shelf, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":6365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n