Go ahead. I give you permission, if that's what you need. Write whatever you wish, even if you don't know a thing about it. Find out. Learn it. Study it. Do the necessary research. You'll only benefit from this process. Don't ever let anyone tell you, "You can't write about that if you don't know anything about it. If you've never been to a certain place, never visited or seen it how can write about it?"

It's called research, and there is a wonderful thing called the Internet which cuts down the time intensity by hours, if not days, not to mention the enormous expense saved on traveling and accommodations. However, you must be sure to check all your sources. As a staff writer who contributes interviews and articles for an internationally distributed magazine, I must always confirm my sources. It helps to avoid any embarrassment later on to myself and the magazine. I also check other sources besides the Internet. Libraries offer online databases, but it doesn't hurt to take a trip to the building and check the shelves every now and then. Also, speaking to people regarding your subject matter is equally important. Interview people who have actually been there, done that. You will get a sense of the culture and the colloquialisms. Immerse yourself into this project. You might find it to be fun and enthusiastically recharge your own writing prose. 

When I begin a new writing project, I make a list of persons, places, things, I can research, get in contact with, or go visit. When I wrote "Rescue in the African Congo," still unpublished, I interviewed people who had gone on several mission trips to the area. I had a Scottish captain who played the bagpipes as one of the main characters, so I researched bagpipes and found out a lot of interesting things I didn't know. I found a local bagpipe society in my area and went to interview them, listened to them play, studied the different parts of the pipes and how they are played. I researched about the breed of dog I chose to include as a companion for the captain and interviewed a breeder to find out about the temperament and habits. I researched about traveling in the Congo. How to get there. Where to go. What is the terrain and weather like at different times of the year. I researched about gorillas (apes) and learned about child armies. This opened my eyes to a whole new world I wasn't aware of at all. I've never been to Africa and quite possibly never will go, but I think I know enough about it to write a pretty compelling novel. 

Someone else who has written an entire series of novels, which has since become one of NY Times bestseller's of all time, is Diana Gabaldon, author of "Outlander." She never set foot on Scottish soil before writing a word of that novel. ('nough said.)

Sleet, snow, and nothing but cloudy skies. As I sit here on my couch in the middle of the night, my insomnia has me listening to the sleet tapping against the window. What is it about winter that keeps me from wanting to write? Do I have a seasonal disorder? No, I did just have back surgery though. So that's a good enough excuse I guess. As I recline comfortably on the couch, laptop propped up by my knees, I am also watching a marathon of Pillars of the Earth. This is a great series. No, I haven't read the book. I prefer to watch instead of laboriously muddle through the pages. My eyes tend to tire out quickly, which is bothersome to me. I wish I could read more prolifically, but I have to reserve my reading habits for more astute educational materials and edit other people's writing. Reading for pleasure is simply difficult for me. I do a lot of reading and editing of other writer friends. Some of it's pretty good, but I find most people who ask for my help do not know the craft nearly as well. And I do not consider myself that good of writer either. I've just been doing it a bit longer and have paid attention to developing skills more than they. In that respect, I tend to get the writer blues. I find it discouraging to read junk and then struggle to find the words on how to tell my friend they write utter junk without hurting their feelings. That is just impossible to do. In such cases, I simply don't say. If they insist, I attempt to be kind in my choice of words. However, this isn't direct enough for most folks who simply don't get my round about way of thinking. Yet if I dare be too direct, I come across harsh and cruel. It's a catch 22 of sorts. How to say it without really saying it, but saying it clearly enough so they can benefit from my gentle critique. Some people have a thicker skin than others, but many newbies are thin to the core. I was there once myself. I understand this your baby. But this baby needs to learn to crawl and then walk and then eventually start to run, yet remain within a safe distance of a parent's watchful eye. The writer must be willing to submit to a mentor's watchful critique in order to learn the craft and write well. Here is my angst. Writers who do not care to learn and hone technique and skill. They only want to see their god awful words in print. They consider themselves God's gift to the world and the words of course were given by Him anyway so why touch a thing. They are perfect just the way they are written. And this my friends is exactly why many writers stop writing. They can't take the rejection. They won't do the work. Instead they rush to write their inspired words in a first draft and throw it out on the internet for the world to see. Like what I'm doing now. Normally I'd never bear my soul in such a raw way. Some may prefer this style better. I hope it serves a purpose. 

Winter is lonely and beautiful at the same time. Sometimes it's ugly and then all together lovely, just like writing. In the loneliness, we find our true voice for writing. In the despair of rejection, we see the ugly for what it is and, if we persevere, we learn how to write better until the voice is clearly heard. 

Just when my discouragement is about to get the best of me, out of the blue comes a contract offer for a sequel to Candy Moon. This gave me a much-needed shot in the arm, the B12 of confidence I needed to keep going. If you are discouraged with your writing today, I pray you will find encouragement and the fortitude to keep going. Perseverance is a gift of the Holy Spirit. I pray you will receive this gift. 

Write Fast!

Three years and change I spent in graduate school, chasing my MFA in creative writing. I had a free ride, thanks to the good people of Tennessee. But I had to work for it—mostly trying to teach ball-capped, slack-jawed Mississippi frat boys that reading is more important than beer. For all that time and effort, the smartest, most intelligent piece of writerly advice I ever received came in two plain words from a fine writing instructor, Tom Russell. You guessed it: Write fast.

I won’t claim to be the king, even a prince, of writing fast. Maybe a minor knighthood, though. Consider…

My first published academic paper: written the night before it was due as a term paper.

First published short story: four hours for the first draft.

The only play of mine that’s ever seen a stage: A morning-noon-night gush in a favourite watering hole—diet Pepsi only, folks—produced the first hundred-page draft, later polished.

My two commercially published novels (Ruby Ruby, Vancouver: Anvil Press, 1999…Thorazine Beach, Anvil Press, 2013) each arose from 72-hour blitzes in the International 3-Day Novel competition, in whose 35-year history I’m the only two-time winner.

My respectful submission: I’m qualified to talk about the value in writing fast.

Ask any art teacher…Rank beginners, people who’ve never drawn or painted before, are reluctant to make a mark on a sketch pad page lest it be “wrong”…feel afraid to squeeze paint from the tube.

“But I don’t know what to write” is the litany of those would-be writers who suffer this kind of writer’s block. Truth: I don’t know what to write, either. Ever. The words come when I start typing. When I make them come.

Plenty of those who call themselves “Christian writers” have, in my perception, an exacerbated version of this block. Now, none of us Christians would deny that we have access, potentially, to a special kind of inspiration. That inspiration, we like to think, is the source of whatever virtue our writing may have. Some of us like to think of ourselves or our texts as “anointed.” Some that “God’s hand has guided” our writing. I’m with you so far. Though I’m not fond of the term Christian writer and don’t wear it myself, for reasons not here relevant, I’m a Christian and a writer, and, yes, the two are intimately connected. I, like most of those who’ll read this, I suspect, make it a practice to pray before a writing session, and often pray thanks afterward.

But such beliefs and practices can get in the way. I have to be in the right spiritual frame of mind, many Christian writers tell me. I ask: How do you get there? If the answer is by praying, I generally buy that. If the answer bears the shape Well, I just kind of have to wait…I often begin to sense a certain aroma. An aroma you can associate with farms. Or, ultimately, with fear. And with excuse.

Frank question…If you had to be “in the right spirit” to vacuum your living room carpet, how dirty would it be right now? If, at the office, you needed to be “in position, spiritually” before doing the accounts receivable, would they ever get done on time? And would the boss be pleased?

The Boss—that one, with the capital ‘B’—would be delighted, Christian writers, if you’d just get on with it.

Wrong recipe: Pray…wait…write.

Better recipe: Pray…write.

And fast.

Bradley Harris is a Canadian writer, editor, and teacher living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the only writer to have won the 3-Day Novel Contest twice - See more of this article at: 
http://www.3daynovel.com/tag/bradley-harris/

His current work Thorazine Beach is available at:
Anvil Press. 

Meet Bradley Harris: Author and Editor Extraordinaire
I've been working with Mr. Harris for the past three years to help educate our local writers and to hone my own writing skills. Recently, I discovered a unique quality in this man's teaching repertoire and asked Bradley  to share some of his wit and wisdom with my readers. These blog entries will be offered in a series so please come back for more. 


Let It Go, Already! 
by Bradley Harris


Sixteen years. That’s how long one of my (former) clients has been “working on” her book. You’d think that would be enough time. After all, the woman worked, years ago, as a journalist for a broadcasting organization whose name you’d recognize. She knows about deadlines. Knows how to write fast, get it done.

My client has lots of text—certainly a book’s worth. Pretty well-drafted text it is, too, especially considering it’s in a genre—memoir—that’s new to her. Really, though, I should be saying texts—plural. You see, my old client has in her laptop about twenty chapters, each in three or four versions, on up to—wait for it!--eighteen versions of one chapter.

This is not a “mistake” in writerly method. It’s nonsense. Arguably pathological, meaning no disrespect thereby. She can’t let go.

My client—Brenda, we’ll call her—received well the specific edits I suggested in the early (all different) chapters. But then I started catching déjà vu—chapters I swore I’d read before, save that she hadn’t made changes I was equally sure I’d suggested. “Different versions,” she explained. I stopped work. Told her she shouldn’t be blowing money that way. We talked about the problem, about her being afraid to discard a version of a chapter lest she lose something important or that she really wanted. Variant chapters kept building, each in a separate file. I asked finally, how many files she had. Answer: over a hundred. Blushed when she said it. She knew.

I won’t spend any more of your money, I said, until you do this: Pick a version—any one, your favourite—of each chapter. Then stuff all these into a single file, and we’ll work on that.

Years later, that big single file doesn’t exist. Brenda’s still “working on it.” Sometimes “thinking about it.”

It is now not a book, but an agony.

Your quest for the perfect book (perfect story, perfect poem, etc.) will fail. Guaranteed. Till you, as a writer, move beyond being a member of Homo sapiens, you will continue producing the imperfect, the incomplete, the less-than-it-could-have-been. Get over that. Do these things…

1. Get your book or story assembled, early, into a single computer file, even if there are big chunks missing. That’s powerful, motivationally. You’ll be able to think and say That’s my book, not some lame prattle about Well, I’ve got some parts done...
   
   
2. Pick. This sentence? That sentence? Short version? Long version? This metaphor, or that? Pick one. Save the other(s) if you must—elsewhere.
   
   
3. Keep writing, rewriting. Go for completeness—get it all there—before you start worrying too much about the finer points.
   
   

Sooner or later you’ll get to a particular place. It’s that place where, whatever you do to your piece—cut, add, or change—makes it less. Then you’re done. Time to move on, write more.

Query: Do you have sixteen years to wait for your next book?

Bradley Harris is a Canadian writer, editor, and teacher living and working in Memphis, Tennessee. He is the only writer to have won the 3-Day Novel Contest twice - See more of this article at: 
http://www.3daynovel.com/tag/bradley-harris/

His current work Thorazine Beach is available at:
Anvil Press.